over
pretty well, as he informed Vandeman and the rest of us that the
bridegroom was a social leader in Santa Ysobel, and that the hope of its
best people was to place him and his bride at the head of things there,
leading off with the annual Blossom Festival, due in about a fortnight.

Vandeman responded for himself and his bride, appropriately, with what
I'd call a sort of acceptable, fabricated geniality. You could see he
was the kind that takes such things seriously, one who would go to work
to make a success of any social doings he got into, would give what his
set called good parties; and he spoke feelingly of the Blossom Festival,
which was the great annual event of a little town. If by putting his
shoulder to the wheel he could boost that affair into nation-wide fame
and place a garland of rich bloom upon the brow of his fair city, he was
willing to take off his neatly tailored coat, roll up his immaculate
shirtsleeves and go to it.

There was no time for speech making. The girls wanted to dance; bride
and groom were taking the one o'clock train for the south and Coronado.
The orchestra swung into "I'll Say She Does."

"Just time for one." Vandeman guided his bride neatly out between the
chairs, and they moved away. I turned from watching them to find Worth
asking Mrs. Bowman to dance.

"Oh, Worth, _dearest_! I ought to let one of the girls have you, but--"

She looked helplessly up at him; he smiled down into her tense,
suffering face, and paid no attention to her objections. As soon as he
carried her off, Jim Edwards glumly took out that one of the twins I had
at first supposed to be the elder, the remaining Thornhill girls moved
on Dr. Bowman and began nagging him to hunt partners for them.

"Drag something up here," prompted the freckled tomboy, "or I'll make
you dance with me yourself." She grabbed a coat lapel, and started away
with him.

I turned and laughed into the laughing face of the dark girl. I had no
idea of her name, yet a haunting resemblance, a something somehow
familiar came across to me which I thought for a moment was only the
sweet approachableness of her young femininity.

Bowman had found and collared a partner for Ernestine Thornhill, but
that was as far as it went. The little one forebore her threat of making
him dance with her, came back to her chair and tucked herself in,
snuggling up to the girl beside me, getting hold of a hand and looking
at me across it. She rejoiced, it