ed. "Just
slidin' around! Call that dancin'? Rather see a jig any day in the
world! They ain't very modest, some of 'em. I don't mind that, though.
Not me!"

Miss Fanny Minafer was no longer in charge of him: he emerged from the
ballroom escorted by a middle-aged man of commonplace appearance. The
escort had a dry, lined face upon which, not ornamentally but as a
matter of course, there grew a business man's short moustache; and his
thin neck showed an Adam's apple, but not conspicuously, for there
was nothing conspicuous about him. Baldish, dim, quiet, he was an
unnoticeable part of this festival, and although there were a dozen or
more middle-aged men present, not casually to be distinguished from him
in general aspect, he was probably the last person in the big house at
whom a stranger would have glanced twice. It did not enter George's mind
to mention to Miss Morgan that this was his father, or to say anything
whatever about him.

Mr. Minafer shook his son's hand unobtrusively in passing.

"I'll take Uncle John home," he said, in a low voice. "Then I guess
I'll go on home myself--I'm not a great hand at parties, you know.
Good-night, George."

George murmured a friendly enough good-night without pausing. Ordinarily
he was not ashamed of the Minafers; he seldom thought about them at
all, for he belonged, as most American children do, to the mother's
family--but he was anxious not to linger with Miss Morgan in the
vicinity of old John, whom he felt to be a disgrace.

He pushed brusquely through the fringe of calculating youths who were
gathered in the arches, watching for chances to dance only with girls
who would soon be taken off their hands, and led his stranger lady out
upon the floor. They caught the time instantly, and were away in the
waltz.

George danced well, and Miss Morgan seemed to float as part of the
music, the very dove itself of "La Paloma." They said nothing as they
danced; her eyes were cast down all the while--the prettiest gesture for
a dancer--and there was left in the universe, for each, of them, only
their companionship in this waltz; while the faces of the other dancers,
swimming by, denoted not people but merely blurs of colour. George
became conscious of strange feelings within him: an exaltation of soul,
tender, but indefinite, and seemingly located in the upper part of his
diaphragm.

The stopping of the music came upon him like the waking to an alarm
clock; for instantly six or