"No woman would rather be a wallflower," she affirmed.
"Of course not," I returned promptly, "and I don't believe it is going to be very bad after the first plunge."
Anne leaned over the stair rail and surveyed the formidable group of men in the lower hall. "It's dreadful," she said. Then, gathering about her a scarf of silver tissue, she commanded, "You go first, Sophie," and we descended together.
At the foot of the stairs, Charlemagne Dabney met us.
"Charlie, boy," Anne said plaintively, "ask me to dance with you. I simply can't get used to the leap-year idea——"
And I, having prepared to blunder into a formal, "May I have the pleasure?" was so illumined by her method that I employed it with success—for though I lacked Anne's appealing coquetry, I challenged old friends, and my card was soon filled.
But Anne did not depend on old friends. She danced with the count from Hungary, the multi-millionaire from the West, the Senator from Kentucky, and to fill up spaces she fell back on Charlemagne Dabney.
"I think it was lovely of you," she told him at supper, "to open the house for the week-end and the dance. Only, it's too bad that you insist on the leap-year idea for the whole time."
Across the table Elizabeth Ames sparkled radiantly. "I like it. I didn't dance with a single bore, and before I go home I am going to ask all of the men to marry me!"
Anne's face wore its most gracious expression, but I knew how she felt. Elizabeth is eighteen and pretty. Anne is twice eighteen and pretty. And there's a difference.