. It is
conceivable that they might have to work just as hard and have just as
many little children to look after, and yet not have these dances you
praise them for coming to."

"I'm afraid you find us and our amusements a little crude. Evidently the
spirit of our dances does not appeal to you; but I did not suppose it
necessary to remind you that they should not be judged by the standard of
conventional evening parties," said Peter, hurt and angry in his turn.

"Us, our amusements, our dances? So you are quite identified with these
people, my dear Peter, and I had thought you an ornament of cotillions and
country clubs. I can only infer that it is somebody in particular who has
brought about your change of heart."

Peter flushed a little, and Kitty kept on: "Some of the native belles are
quite wonderful, I believe. Nannie Wetmore tells of a half-breed who is
very handsome."

Peter set his lips. "At the expense of spoiling Nannie's pretty romance, I
must tell you that the lady she refers to is not only the most beautiful
of women, but she would be at ease in any drawing-room. It would be as
ridiculous to apply the petty standards of ladyhood to her as it would
to--well, imagine some foolish girl bringing up the question at a woman's
club--'Was Joan of Arc a lady?'" Peter spoke without calculating the
conviction that his words carried. He was angry, and his manner, voice,
intonation showed it.

Kitty, now that her most unworthy suspicions had been confirmed by Peter's
ardent championing of Judith, lost her discretion in the pang that gnawed
her little soul: "I beg your pardon, Peter. When I spoke I did not, of
course, know that this young woman was anything to you."

"Anything to me? My dear Kitty, I've never had a better friend than Judith
Rodney."

The dance was at its flood-tide. The exhilaration had grown with each
sweep of the fiddle-bow, with the sorcery of sinuous, swaying bodies, with
the song of the dancers as they joined in the calling out of the figures,
with the rhythmic shuffle of feet, with the hum of the pulses, with the
leaping of blood to cheek and heart till the dancers whirled as leaves
circling towards the eddies of a whirlpool. The dancing Mrs. Dax split her
favors into infinitesimal fragments, for each measure of which her long
list of waiting gallants stood ready to pick a quarrel if need be. Her
dancing, in the splendor of its spontaneity, had something of the surge of
the west wind sweepi