clamations of pain.

I was facing the nearest wall of the room when the lights went out and
I backed Lucy toward it, and then, groping, for I hadn't a match in my
clothes, found it and stood guard over her, one hand pressing the wall
on each side of her and my back braced. I received one thundering jolt
over the kidneys, and one cruel kick on the ankle bone. And then the
lights went on again, and we finished our dance.

Lucy said she hated people who weren't cool and collected in time of
danger. That if she was ever in a theater when it caught fire she
hoped there'd be somebody with her, like _me_, to take care of her!
"That was the neatest thing," she said, "the way you got us out of
that. We might have been knocked down and trampled to death."

When that dance ended, we went out of doors for a few minutes to get
cool. We took a turn the length of the narrow, sanded yard and back.
We could hear the buggy boys just beyond the tall privet hedge. Some
were cracking jokes; others were heavily snoring, and there were
whispered conversations that had to do, no doubt, with mischief, and
petty crimes.

"It's been a grand party," I said. "By and by I'm going to give one."

"But not for me, you know, just a spontaneous party. Oh, do please,
will you?"

"Of course I will. But it will really be given----"

"I mustn't know."

"You shall never know if you mustn't."

"I think you ought to dance once with Evelyn."

"I have danced with her, but only half a dance. She said she was
tired--and then she finished it with Dawson Cooper."

"I wish they'd get to like each other."

"So do I. They're the right age. They've the right amount of money
between them, and they like the same sort of things. But it rests with
Evelyn. Dawson would fly to a dropped handkerchief as a pigeon flies
home; but he's very shy and doesn't think much of himself."

It seemed a good omen when we entered the main hall and found them
sitting out a dance together.

Dawson rose, but with some reluctance, it seemed to me.

"Isn't it about my turn, Lucy?" he said. "Will you?"

"Did Evelyn tell you you had to?"

He blushed like a schoolboy, and Evelyn burst out laughing.

"Then I will," said Lucy, "when I see a man trying to do his duty like
a man, I help him always, and besides you dance like a breeze."

So they went away together, he apologizing and she teasing.

"How about me?" I said to Evelyn. "Is it my turn?"

"No," she said,