Alice took his arm, and they began to walk aimlessly through the
rooms, though she tried to look as if they had a definite
destination, keeping her eyes eager and her lips parted;--people
had called jovially to them from the distance, she meant to
imply, and they were going to join these merry friends. She was
still upon this ghostly errand when a furious outbreak of drums
and saxophones sounded a prelude for the second dance.

Walter danced with her again, but he gave her a warning. "I
don't want to leave you high and dry," he told her, "but I can't
stand it. I got to get somewhere I don't haf' to hurt my eyes
with these berries; I'll go blind if I got to look at any more of
'em. I'm goin' out to smoke as soon as the music begins the next
time, and you better get fixed for it."

Alice tried to get fixed for it. As they danced she nodded
sunnily to every man whose eye she caught, smiled her smile with
the under lip caught between her teeth; but it was not until the
end of the intermission after the dance that she saw help coming.

Across the room sat the globular lady she had encountered that
morning, and beside the globular lady sat a round-headed,
round-bodied girl; her daughter, at first glance. The family
contour was also as evident a characteristic of the short young
man who stood in front of Mrs. Dowling, engaged with her in a
discussion which was not without evidences of an earnestness
almost impassioned. Like Walter, he was declining to dance a
third time with sister; he wished to go elsewhere.