Jane sat very excitedly on the edge of her gold chair, her eyes bright with pleasure. She didn’t bother to talk to her partner. Cotillions were fun.
“Wait for me!” a young man called, waving his white-gloved hand. He returned at once with a crepe-paper boa. Jane flung it around her neck and sprang into his arms. Halfway round the room the whistle parted them. Jane joined the great crowd of girls at one end of the floor. The whistle blew and the men came racing, slipping, sliding down upon them. Jane found herself in the arms of Stephen Carver. She looked up in his face and laughed.
“You’re the girl I met at supper,” he said. He was really very handsome. And he danced divinely.
“You met lots of girls at supper,” said Jane, laughing.
“I remember you,” said Stephen. Jane felt pleasantly elated. He was nice, just as Flora said. The whistle blew.
“Refavour!” shouted the commanding voice of Mr. Bert Lancaster.
“Don’t let’s,” said Stephen. This seemed strangely anarchistic. Jane was a little doubtful. But Stephen’s arm continued to hold her firmly, steering her steadily away from the favour table to the empty end of the room. Jane was afraid she was being conspicuous. But she loved to waltz. In a moment whirling couples were all around them. The whistle blew and they were inevitably parted. In the serpentine line of girls, however, he incredibly found her again.
“You’re a beautiful dancer,” he said.
“Our steps go well together,” said Jane simply.
“You bet they do,” said Stephen, and his arm tightened slightly. Jane was almost glad when the whistle sounded and he returned her to her chair. Of course he was Flora’s cousin. But she had only just met him.
Mr. Bert Lancaster was really outdoing himself. The dancing waxed fast and furious. Soon the girls looked a little dishevelled and the young men very hot indeed. The chairs were heaped with the debris of favours. The crowd around the punch-bowl in the hall grew thicker. In spite of Mr. Furness’s open windows the room was very warm.
Flora was on the floor every minute. Her mother was constantly whirling past. Jane caught a glimpse of Mr. Lancaster dancing with Muriel. Muriel had on a red paper sunbonnet. Her hair was loosened around her flushed face and she was leaning back to look up at Mr. Lancaster as they waltzed. Her gloved hand, outstretched in his, held her swirling blue train. Mr. Lancaster seemed to have forgotten all about the whistle. Stephen Carver blew his and the couples all parted, a little hesitantly. Mr. Lancaster remembered, then. He led a grand right and left with abandon and ended it just where he could catch up Muriel at the end of the line. They raced off together in a rollicking two-step.
Mrs. Furness began to look just a little tired. Faint shadows showed beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She sat with the dowagers, now, smiling over her spangled fan, springing up to offer great armfuls of favours to insistent young men as they bore down on the table.
Jane danced and danced until her pink-slippered feet were weary. It must be growing late, she thought. She hated to have the party over. The favour table was nearly depleted. Some of the dowagers were already gone. She kept meeting Stephen Carver in the cotillion figures. He had favoured her four times. Suddenly she found herself hand in hand with him in a circle of six that should have been four. He dropped out at once, taking her with him.
“That’s a leading from the Lord,” he said. “Let’s go and get some punch.”
They slipped out into the hall together.
“What’s your name?” he said. “Do you know, I can’t remember it!”
“Jane Ward,” said Jane.
“You look like a Jane,” he said.
She laughed at that.
“It’s a very plain name,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother.”
“Not plain,” he answered. “Simple. Like your hair. Like your face, too.”
They had reached the punch table. He handed her her glass.
“Come and drink it on the sofa,” he said.
They walked across the hall and sat down together.
“I’m going to like Chicago,” said Stephen. “I didn’t think I would.”
Jane thought that was just the way she had felt, when she first came home from Bryn Mawr.
“Are you lonely?” she asked.
“Not very,” said Stephen. “Just bored. I live in Miss Miller’s boardinghouse.”
Everyone knew Miss Miller. Lots of young men boarded with her.
“That’s just around the corner from me,” said Jane.
“May I come to see you?” asked Stephen.
“Of course,” said Jane.
“May I come Sunday?” Sunday was day after tomorrow.
“Of course,” said Jane again.
“Flora told me about you,” said Stephen. “You’re a great friend of hers, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Jane. She had finished her punch. The music sounded very alluring. Jane began to think of her deserted partner. “We’d better go back,” she said.
Stephen rose a little reluctantly. The whole room was up, when they returned, twisting about in an intricate basket.
“That’s the next to the last figure,” said Stephen. “There’s just one more for Flora.”
They mingled with the dancers as the basket broke into couples. Jane had seen her mother watching her as she came in from the hall. Her eye was very indulgent. The whistle blew. Everyone sat down. Jane’s partner greeted her with enthusiasm.
“Look what’s coming,” he said.
Mr. Bert Lancaster was dragging a gold chair out into the centre of the ballroom floor. In one hand he held a silver mirror and a red paper rose.
“All men up!” he shouted.
A regiment of black-garbed figures sprang to the command. The gaily dressed girls, left on the golden chairs, looked like a flower border around the room. “Of course,” said Jane to herself, “wall flowers!” She had never thought of it before.
Mr. Lancaster was running down the room
