FLAMING
YOUTH
177
She met his searching look with unwavering eyes, her aostrils wide with pride. “Do you think I’m so afraid of you—or of anyone—that Id lie about it?” To look at her and disbelieve was impossible. “Besides,”
she added, her voice breaking a little in
éelf-pity, “I told you I was through with that necking game.” “How do you want me to apologise, little Pat?” Her unerring instinct for the charming, the compelling move inspired her. “I don’t want you to apologise. I want you to dance with me.” “Any and all that you'll give me—and with all gratitude and contrition.” “T’ll filch out two; the fifteenth
and the fifth extra.
You must be watching. And—about supper—couldn’t you?” “No. Not possibly. How could I?” She smiled, ruefully yet with a shining quality in her disappointment. “Of course you couldn’t. It wouldn’t be you if you did. I don’t care—now.” Until the fifteenth number Scott did not return to the ballroom but wandered outside in dreamy and restless expectation. What he expected, he could not have told, He was conscious chiefly of an enormous relief in the discovery that Pat had not gone back on her good resolutions. But this was only part of what he felt. The callowest sophomore could hardly have found himself more eager or less certain of his ground, than did Cary Scott, man of ripened wisdom and wide experience of women though he was, as he entered to claim his appointment. “But I tell you, Monty,” Pat was saying to a tall and particularly handsome youth who stood before her, pro-
gramme
in hand and a look of almost ludicrous dis-
