at moved Katie. That a girl should not be privileged to be insistent
about going to a dance--it seemed depriving her of her birthright. And
more cruel than taking away a birthright was bringing the consciousness
of having no birthright.

Katie entered gayly into the plans. They decided that Ann was to wear the
rose-colored muslin--the same gown she had worn that first night. As she
was fastening it for her Katie saw that Ann was smiling at herself in the
mirror, giving herself little pats of approval here and there.

She had not done that the first time Katie helped her into that dress.

But it was the Ann of the first days who turned strained face to her in
the dressing-room at the club-house. All the girlish radiance--girlish
vanity--was gone. "Katie," she whispered, "I think I'd better go home.
I--I didn't know it would be like this. So many people--so many
lights--and things."

Gently Katie reassured her. Ann needing her was the Ann she knew how to
care for, and would care for in the face of all the people--all the
"lights--and things." "You needn't dance if you don't want to," she
told her. "I'll tell Wayne to look out for you, that you're really not
able to meet people. If I put him on guard he'll go through fire and
water for you."

"Yes--I know that," said Ann, and seemed to take heart.

And for some time she did not dance. From the floor Katie Would get
glimpses of Ann and Wayne sauntering on the veranda on which the
ball-room opened. More than once she found Ann's eyes following her--Ann
out in the shadow, looking in at the gay people in the light.

But with the opening of a lively two-step Captain Prescott insisted Ann
dance with him. "Oh come now," he urged. "Life's too short to sit on the
side lines. This is a ripping two-step."

The music, too, was urgent--and persuasive. As if without volition she
fell into gliding little steps, moving toward the dancing floor.

It was Katie who watched that time. She wanted to see Ann dancing. At
first it puzzled her; she was too graceful not to dance well, but she
danced as if differently trained, as if unaccustomed to their way of
dancing. But as the two-step progressed she fell into the swing of it
and seemed no different from the rest of the pretty, happy girls all
about her.

She was radiant when she came back to them. Like the golf, the dancing
seemed to have given her confidence--and confidence, happiness.

Though she still shrank from meeting people.