Has it come loose?" Alice wrenched
desperately; then it was loose. The competent woman, producing needle
and thread, deftly made the buckle fast; and there was nothing for Alice
to do but to express her gratitude and go.

She went to the door of the cloak-room opposite, where a coloured man
stood watchfully in the doorway. "I wonder if you know which of the
gentlemen is my brother, Mr. Walter Adams," she said.

"Yes'm; I know him."

"Could you tell me where he is?"

"No'm; I couldn't say."

"Well, if you see him, would you please tell him that his sister, Miss
Adams, is looking for him and very anxious to speak to him?"

"Yes'm. Sho'ly, sho'ly!"

As she went away he stared after her and seemed to swell with some
bursting emotion. In fact, it was too much for him, and he suddenly
retired within the room, releasing strangulated laughter.

Walter remonstrated. Behind an excellent screen of coats and hats, in a
remote part of the room, he was kneeling on the floor, engaged in a game
of chance with a second coloured attendant; and the laughter became
so vehement that it not only interfered with the pastime in hand, but
threatened to attract frozen-face attention.

"I cain' he'p it, man," the laughter explained. "I cain' he'p it! You
sut'n'y the beatin'es' white boy 'n 'is city!"

The dancers were swinging into an "encore" as Alice halted for an
irresolute moment in a doorway. Across the room, a cluster of matrons
sat chatting absently, their eyes on their dancing daughters; and Alice,
finding a refugee's courage, dodged through the scurrying couples,
seated herself in a chair on the outskirts of this colony of elders,
and began to talk eagerly to the matron nearest her. The matron seemed
unaccustomed to so much vivacity, and responded but dryly, whereupon
Alice was more vivacious than ever; for she meant now to present the
picture of a jolly girl too much interested in these wise older women to
bother about every foolish young man who asked her for a dance.

Her matron was constrained to go so far as to supply a tolerant nod, now
and then, in complement to the girl's animation, and Alice was grateful
for the nods. In this fashion she supplemented the exhausted resources
of the dressing-room and the box-tree nook; and lived through two more
dances, when again Mr. Frank Dowling presented himself as a partner.

She needed no pretense to seek the dressing-room for repairs after that
number; this time they were nece