"Yes; but why didn't you like the ball?" murmured Jinny the direct.

"I did like the ball. Very much."

"Then why didn't you stay?"

"I--I wasn't feeling top-hole," he murmured lamely, wondering why
girls always wanted to go back and stir up dogs that had gone
comfortably to sleep.

"Did it come on suddenly?" said Jinny, unsympathetically, her eyes
still upon the pyramids.

Something whimsical twitched at Jack Ryder's lips. "Very suddenly.
Like thunder, out of China crost the bay."

"I suppose that dancing with the same girl in succession brings on
the seizures?"

So she had noticed that!... Not for nothing were those bright, gray
eyes of hers! Not for nothing the red hair.

"Well, I rather think it did," he said deliberately. "That girl was
a child who hadn't danced in four years--so she said, and I believe
her."

And Jinny received what he intended to convey. "Stepped on your
buckled shoon and you felt a martyr?... But why bolt? There were
other girls who _had_ danced within four years--"