s,
in which engagements were jotted definitely down, and at each dance's
end a girl was returned respectfully to her chaperon where the next
partner called for her. Often she had scanned Lucia's scrawled programs
for the names there.

But none of that now.

Up and down the hall she sped in some man's arms, round and round, up
and down, until another man, agile, dexterous, shot between the couples
and claimed her. And then up and down again until some other man. . . .
And sometimes they went back to rest in the intimately arranged chairs
beneath the balcony, and sometimes stepped out of doors to saunter along
a wide terrace.

It was incredibly independent. It was intoxicatingly free. It was also
terrifyingly responsible.

And Maria Angelina, in her young fear of unpopularity, smiled so
ingenuously upon each arrival, with a shy, backward deprecatory glance
at her lost partner, that she stirred something new and wondering in
each seasoned breast, and each dancer came again and again.

But all of them, the new young men from town, the tennis champion from
Yale, the polo player from England, the lawyer from Washington, the
stout widower, the professional bachelor, all were only moving shapes
that came and went and came again and by their tribute made her
successful in Johnny's eyes.

Indeed, so well did they do their work that Johnny was moved to brusque
expostulation.

"Look here, Ri-Ri, I told you this was to be _my_ dance! With all those
outsiders cutting in--Freeze them, Ri-Ri. Try a long, hard level look on
the next one you see making your way. . . . Don't you _want_ to dance
with me, any more? Huh? Where's that stand-in of mine? Is it a little,
old last year's model?"

"But what am I to do----?"

"Fight 'em off. Bite 'em. Kick their shins. . . . Oh, Lord," groaned
Johnny, dexterously whirling her about, "there's another coming. . . .
Here's where we go. This way out."

Speedily he piloted her through the throng. Masterfully he caught her
arm and drew her out of doors.

She was glad to be out of the dance. His clasp had been growing too
personal . . . too tight. . . . Perhaps she was only oddly
self-conscious . . . incapable of the serene detachment of those other
dancers, who, yielding and intertwined, revolved in intimate harmony.

There was a moon. It shone soft and bright upon them, making a world of
enchantment. The long lines of the mountains melted together like a
violet cloud and above them a ro