e floor, and
she was beside him!

Some way, as through a haze, he saw her. Some way he realized that now
and then his hand touched hers, and that once, as they whirled about
the room, in obedience to the monarch on the fiddler's rostrum, his arm
was about her waist, and her head touching his shoulder. It made
little difference whether the dance calls were obeyed after that.
Fairchild was making up for all the years he had plodded, all the years
in which he had known nothing but a slow, grubbing life, living them
all again and rightly, in the few swift moments of a dance.

The music ended, and laughing they returned to the side of the hall.
Out of the haze he heard words, and knew indistinctly that they were
his own:

"Will--will you dance with me again tonight?"

"Selfish!" she chided.

"But will you?"

For just a moment her eyes grew serious.

"Did you ever realize that we 've never been introduced?"

Fairchild was finding more conversation than he ever had believed
possible.

"No--but I realize that I don't care--if you 'll forgive it.
I--believe that I 'm a gentleman."

"So do I--or I would n't have danced with you."

"Then please--"

"Pardon me." She had laid a hand on his arm for just a moment, then
hurried away. Fairchild saw that she was approaching young Rodaine,
scowling in the background. That person shot an angry remark at her as
she approached and followed it with streaming sentences. Fairchild
knew the reason. Jealousy! Couples returning from the dance floor
jostled against him, but he did not move. He was waiting--waiting for
the outcome of the quarrel--and in a moment it came. Anita Richmond
turned swiftly, her dark eyes ablaze, her pretty lips set and firm.
She looked anxiously about her, sighted Fairchild, and then started
toward him, while he advanced to meet her.

"I 've reconsidered," was her brief announcement. "I 'll dance the
next one with you."

"And the next after that?"

Again: "Selfish!"

But Fairchild did not appear to hear.

"And the next and the next and the next!" he urged as the caller issued
his inevitable invitations for couples. Anita smiled.

"Maybe--I 'll think about it."

"I 'll never know how to dance, unless you teach me." Fairchild
pleaded, as they made their way to the center of the floor. "I 'll--"

"Don't work on my sympathies!"

"But it's the truth. I never will."

"S'lute yo' podners!" The dance was on. And while the music sque