He said it in the most determined manner, as if everything was settled.
I felt like a rat in a trap, and Carter, watching from a corner, looked
exactly like a cat. If he had taken his hand in its white glove and
washed his face with it, I would hardly have been surprized.
The music stopped, and somebody claimed me for the next. Jane came up,
too, and cluched my arm.
"You lucky thing!" she said. "He's perfectly handsome. And oh, Bab, he's
wild about you. I can see it in his eyes."
"Don't pinch, Jane," I said coldly. "And don't rave. He's an idiot."
She looked at me with her mouth open.
"Well, if you don't want him, pass him on to me," she said, and walked
away.
It was too silly, after everything that had happened, to dance the next
dance with Willie Graham, who is still in knickerbockers, and a full
head shorter than I am. But that's the way with a Party for the school
crowd, as I've said before. They ask all ages, from perambulaters up,
and of course the little boys all want to dance with the older girls. It
is deadly stupid.
But H seemed to be having a good time. He danced a lot with Jane, who
is a wreched dancer, with no sense of time whatever. Jane is not pretty,
but she has nice eyes, and I am not afraid, second couzin once removed
or no second couzin once removed, to say she used them.
Altogether, it was a terrible evening. I danced three dances out of four
with knickerbockers, and one with old Mr. Adams, who is fat and rotates
his partner at the corners by swinging her on his waistcoat. Carter did
not dance at all, and every time I tried to speak to him he was taking a
crowd of the little girls to the fruit-punch bowl.
I determined to have things out with H during the Cotillion, and tell
him that I would never marry him, that I would Die first. But I was
favored a great deal, and when we did have a chance the music was making
such a noise that I would have had to shout. Our chairs were next to the
band.
But at last we had a minute, and I went out to the verandah, which was
closed in with awnings. He had to follow, of course, and I turned and
faced him.
"Now" I said, "this has got to stop."
"I don't understand you, Bab."