conspiracy to mumble the names spoken to Arethusa, that she could
almost have fled the Party. "The Advice to Young Ladies" had said
nothing of such a proceeding as being part of the Routine of Parties,
nor had Elinor made any mention of it. Arethusa was totally unprepared.
And it was, as an experience, well calculated to dampen even the
exuberance of spirits with which Arethusa had fared forth to this new
adventure. Everyone about her seemed to know everyone else intimately;
she had no part in the gay greetings of old friends. It made her feel
herself, as she watched, the only stranger at the Dinner Dance.

So she clung to Mr. Harrison for an old acquaintance, as to a rock in a
weary land of unfamiliar surroundings. But such clinging was really
unnecessary; for he wanted not to leave her side. Arethusa's little
confusion only made her prettier.

"Am I going to sit by you at the dinner-table?" she asked him, when she
had summoned sufficient courage to add this bit to the general uproar
of pleasant conversation. It would help matters mightily, if she was.

"I don't know," he began slowly, but then he added, very briskly
indeed, "but I can go find out and change the cards around if you're
not."

"Oh, don't leave me! Don't leave me!" Arethusa fairly shrieked this
request, and she grabbed at his coat-tails as he started away. "Please
don't go off and leave me!"

Consequently, he was forced to leave her when they finally sought the
dining-room, and he was miles away on the other side of the huge
apartment at another table. Arethusa found herself next to a perfectly
strange youth, a rotund, almost moon-faced individual with eyes that
danced good-humoredly behind glasses.

This person addressed himself strictly to business, weeding out from
the silver by his plate with such a reassuring air of knowing that he
did the right thing, a small article shaped like a tiny pitchfork, that
Arethusa followed suit immediately.

But she had a very decided dislike of eating blindly ahead without
knowing what it was she ate, and although the objects before her
presented a rather familiar appearance, she wanted to be quite
positive. Having somewhat recovered her spirits by this time, it was
not so hard to ask her neighbor the question. He did not look at all
formidable, and one talked to one's partner at dinners, so the "Advice"
had said, and it had not specified any condition of previously knowing
that partner.

CHAPTER XVI