wistful face. He could not decide whether to look at Ruth or to avoid
her glance. She settled the point by smiling at him in a manner that
could not be ignored.

"Are you going to make it up to me for that waltz you missed?" said Ruth
Earp. She pretended to be vexed and stern, but he knew that she was not.
"Or is your programme full?" she added.

"I should like to," he said simply.

"But perhaps you don't care to dance with us poor, ordinary people, now
you've danced with the _Countess_!" she said, with a certain lofty
and bitter pride.

He perceived that his tone had lacked eagerness.

"Don't talk like that," he said, as if hurt.

"Well," she said, "you can have the supper dance."

He took her programme to write on it.

"Why," he said, "there's a name down here for the supper dance.
'Herbert,' it looks like."

"Oh!" she replied carelessly, "that's nothing. Cross it out."

So he crossed Herbert out.

"Why don't you ask Nellie here for a dance?" said Ruth Earp.