d of him.

"There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the dance orders and meet
you outside."

There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly
seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she
was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the
simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of
the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the
bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard
blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the
crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear
successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith
smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum powder, and preferred them
all to her own unscented French variety. She had a moment of sudden
loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all?

It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and
the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love
me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad
of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be.
Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the
dressing-room.

The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a
great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling
through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the
decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The
lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under
the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted.
The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage,
which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath,
under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a
suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully,
with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars.

The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights,
was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches
were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for
wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of
wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were
clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the
prominent guests of the e