d. She shrank from the symbolism
of bondage.

"The world is looking on!" he admonished her.

Knowing that she danced very well, she now had but one fear--that her
partner might make her ridiculous.

But H. R. was the best dancer she had ever honored.

She felt her resolution not to marry him slipping away. He led divinely.
She felt that she herself had never danced so well in her life. He
brought out the best that was in her.

"Ever try the Rutgers Roll?" he whispered, tensely.

"N-no! she gasped.

"Let yourself go!"

When a woman lets herself go, all is over except the terms of the
capitulation. She let herself go desperately, because she was forced to
do it; fearfully, because of the appalling possibility of a fiasco.

She did not know how it was done. She had looped the loop and was still
dancing away--a new but unutterably graceful undulation of torso and
rhythmical leg work and exquisite sinuous motions of the arms and hands.

A storm of applause came to her ears, a hurricane steeped in saccharine.
A man who could dance like that was fit to be any girl's husband!

The elite flocked on the floor and began to indulge in old-fashioned
specialties, some of which were nearly a fortnight old. You heard
delighted remarks:

"That's Mrs. Vandergilt!"

"There goes Reggie Van Duzen!"

"Look at Katherine Van Schaick!"

Then the New York that Americans call ruffianly, impolite, vulgar,
selfish, spendthrift, money-loving, self-satisfied, and stupid, also
began to dance decorously! The veteran reporters did not believe their
eyes, but they made a note of the fact, nevertheless.

Grace was nearly out of breath. She said, "I'm--I'm--I'm--"

"Certainly, dear girl." And H. R. deftly piloted her out of the crush.
They stopped dancing, and he gave her his arm. She took it.

"Grace," he said, "when will you marry me?"

"Never!" she answered, determinedly. "And you must not call me Grace."

"Right-O!" he said, gratefully. "I'll call to-morrow afternoon. Shall I
speak to Bishop Phillipson, or will father--"

"I said _never_!" she frowned.

"I heard you," he smiled, reassuringly. "I--"

Andrew Barrett and the reporters came up to him.

"What about the men that fell for the beer?"

"Oh, give 'em the left-over grub, if you boys think it's right. But
don't print it. The W. C. T. U. would howl at the thought of giving food
to people who had first wanted booze."

Grace looked on, marveling at the way he ordered