-keep off her toes and don't forget to
count the time. Hurry and g-get off your things; I want you to try it
before the crowd comes. There are only a few couples for you to bump
into now, and there will be a hundred after a while."

O the fine rapture of that first moment when Sandy found he could
dance! Annette knocked away his remaining doubts and fears and boldly
launched him into the merry whirl. The first rush was breathless,
carrying all before it; but after a moment's awful uncertainty he
settled into the step and glided away over the shining floor,
counting his knots to be sure, but sailing triumphantly forward
behind the flutter of Annette's pink ribbons.

He was introduced right and left, and he asked every girl he met to
dance. It made little difference who she happened to be, for in
imagination she was always the same. Annette had secured for him the
last dance with Ruth, and he intended to practise every moment until
that magic hour should arrive.

But youth reckons not with circumstance. Just when all sails were set
and he was nearing perfection, he met with a disaster which promptly
relegated him to the dry-dock. His partner did not dance!

When he looked at her, he found that she was tall and thin and
vivacious, and he felt that she must have been going to hops for a
very long time.

"I hate dancing, don't you?" she said. "Let's go over there, out of
the crowd, and have a nice long talk."

Sandy glanced at the place indicated. It seemed a long way from base.

"Wouldn't you like to stand here and watch them?" he floundered
helplessly.

"Oh, dear, no; it's too crowded. Besides," she added playfully, "I
have heard _so_ much about you and your awfully romantic life. I just
want to know all about it."

As a trout, one moment in mid-stream swimming and frolicking with the
best, finds himself suddenly snatched out upon the bank, gasping and
helpless, so Sandy found himself high and dry against the wall, with
the insistent voice of his captor droning in his ears.

She had evidently been wound and set, and Sandy had unwittingly
started the pendulum.

"Have you ever been to Chicago, Mr. Kilday? No? It is such a dear
place; I simply adore it. I'm on my way home from there now. All my
men friends begged me to stay; they sent me so many flowers I had to
keep them in the bath-tub. Wasn't it darling of them? I just love
men. How long have you been in Clayton, Mr. Kilday?"

He tried to answer coherently,