"I'm afraid I'd better not just now," she returned, glancing over her shoulder. "You see, all the people aren't here yet."

"You've got an aunt here," said Noble, "and a sister-in-law and a little niece: I saw 'em. They can—"

"I'm afraid I'd better stay indoors just now," she said persuasively. "We can talk here just as well."

"We can't!" he insisted feverishly. "We can't, Julia! I've got something to say, Julia. Julia, you gave me the first dance and the last dance, and of course sitting together at supper, or whatever there is, and you know as well as I do that means it's just the same as if you weren't giving this party but it was somewhere else and I took you to it, and it's always understood you never dance more with anybody else than the one you went with, when you go with that person to a place, because that's the rights of it; and other towns it's just the same way; they do that way there, just the same as here; they do that way everywhere, because nobody else has got a right to cut in and dance more with you than the one you go with, when you goes to a place with that one. Julia, don't you see that's the regular way it is, and the only fair way it ought to be?"

"What?"

"Weren't you even listening?" he cried.

"Yes, indeed, but—"

"Julia," he said desperately, "let's go out on the porch. I want to explain just the way I feel. Let's go out on the porch, Julia. If we stay here, somebody's just bound to interrupt us any minute before I can explain the way I—"

But the prophecy was fulfilled even before it was concluded. A group of loudly chattering girls and their escorts of the moment bore down upon Julia, and shattered the tête-à-tête. Dislodged from Julia's side by a large and eager girl, whom he had hated ever since she was six years old and he five, Noble found himself staggering in a kind of suburb; for the large girl's disregard of him, as she shouldered in, was actually physical, and too powerful for him to resist. She wished to put her coarse arm round Julia's waist, it appeared, and the whole group burbled and clamoured: the party was perfictly glorious; so was the waxed floor; so was Julia, my dear, so was the music, the weather, and the din they made!

Noble felt that his rights were being outraged. Until the next dance began, every moment of her time was legally his—yet all he could even see of her was the top of her head. And the minutes were flying.

He stood on tiptoe, thrust his head forward over the large girl's odious shoulder, and shouted: "Julia! Let's go out on the porch!"

No one seemed to hear him.

"Julia—"

Boom! Rackety-Boom! The drummer walloped his drums; a saxophone squawked, and fiddles squealed. Hereupon appeared a tall authoritative man, at least thirty-two years old, and all swelled up with himself, as interpreted by Noble and several other friends of Julia's—though this, according to quite a number of people (all feminine) was only another way of saying that he was a person of commanding presence. He wore a fully developed moustache, an easy smile, clothes offensively knowing; and his hair began to show that scarcity which Julia felt gave him distinction—a curious theory, but natural to her age. What really did give this Clairdyce some air of distinction, however, was the calmness with which he walked through the group that had dislodged Noble Dill, and the assurance with which he put his arm about Julia and swept her away in the dance.