said. "Can't you flag one
o' these long-tailed birds to take you on for the next dance? You came
to have a good time; why don't you get busy and have it? I want to get
out and smoke."

"You MUSTN'T leave me, Walter," she whispered, hastily. "Somebody'll
come for me before long, but until they do----"

"Well, couldn't you sit somewhere?"

"No, no! There isn't any one I could sit with."

"Well, why not? Look at those ole dames in the corners. What's the
matter your tyin' up with some o' them for a while?"

"PLEASE, Walter; no!"

In fact, that indomitable smile of hers was the more difficult to
maintain because of these very elders to whom Walter referred. They
were mothers of girls among the dancers, and they were there to fend and
contrive for their offspring; to keep them in countenance through any
trial; to lend them diplomacy in the carrying out of all enterprises;
to be "background" for them; and in these essentially biological
functionings to imitate their own matings and renew the excitement of
their nuptial periods. Older men, husbands of these ladies and fathers
of eligible girls, were also to be seen, most of them with Mr. Palmer
in a billiard-room across the corridor. Mr. and Mrs. Adams had not been
invited. "Of course papa and mama just barely know Mildred Palmer,"
Alice thought, "and most of the other girls' fathers and mothers are old
friends of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, but I do think she might have ASKED papa
and mama, anyway--she needn't have been afraid just to ask them;
she knew they couldn't come." And her smiling lip twitched a little
threateningly, as she concluded the silent monologue. "I suppose she
thinks I ought to be glad enough she asked Walter!"

Walter was, in fact, rather noticeable. He was not Mildred's only guest
to wear a short coat and to appear without gloves; but he was singular
(at least in his present surroundings) on account of a kind of
coiffuring he favoured, his hair having been shaped after what seemed
a Mongol inspiration. Only upon the top of the head was actual hair
perceived, the rest appearing to be nudity. And even more than by any
difference in mode he was set apart by his look and manner, in which
there seemed to be a brooding, secretive and jeering superiority and
this was most vividly expressed when he felt called upon for his loud,
short, lop-sided laugh. Whenever he uttered it Alice laughed, too, as
loudly as she could, to cover it.

"Well," he said. "How long