"Well, now, Polly, your dragons, although not exactly like any living
ones extant, made me think of some I saw at the Zoo, in London. Do you
want me to tell you how?"

"Oh! if you please," cried Polly, her color coming back, and beginning
to forget the dance and the dancers.

"Let us sit down here, then," said Mr. Alstyne, drawing her off to two
chairs in a corner, "and you shall have the tale. No pun, Polly, you
know." And he plunged into it at once.

"Yes, Alstyne has her all right," Mr. King was saying at the further end
of the drawing-room to Mrs. Pepper; he spied the whole thing; "he'll
take care of her, you may depend."

And two more people had seen; one was Jasper. Nevertheless his partner,
Alexia Rhys, thought it necessary to enlighten him.

"Just think, Polly's given up her chance with the best dancer in the
room, and sent Pickering Dodge off with that horrid Ray Simmons."

Jasper pretended not to hear. "This is our figure," he said hastily, and
they whirled off, finished it, and were back again.

"Isn't she a goose?" as he fanned her, and tried to introduce another
subject.

"I suppose she best pleases herself," said the boy indifferently. "Why
should any one else interfere in the matter?"