inconsistent things I knew not!

"Buck up, Jack," I heard a voice at my side. "Did she run away from
you?"

I feigned ignorance to Kitty. "They are all alike," said I,
indifferently. "All dressed alike--"

"And I doubt not all acted alike."

"I saw but one," I admitted, "the one with a red heart on her corsage."

Kitty laughed a merry peal. "There were twelve red hearts," she said.
"All there, and all offered to any who might take them. Silly, silly!
Now, I wonder if indeed you did meet Ellen? Come, I'll introduce you to
a hundred more, the nicest girls you ever saw."

"Then it was Ellen?"

"How should I know? I did not see you. I was too busy flirting with my
husband--for after awhile I found that it was Matt, of course! It seems
some sort of fate that I never see a handsome man who doesn't turn out
to be Matt."

"I must have one more dance," I said.

"Then select some other partner. It is too late to find Ellen now, or to
get a word with her if we did. The last I saw of her she was simply
persecuted by Larry Belknap of the Ninth Dragoons--all the Army knows
that he's awfully gone over Ellen."