The dancers were swinging into an "encore" as Alice halted for an
irresolute moment in a doorway. Across the room, a cluster of
matrons sat chatting absently, their eyes on their dancing
daughters; and Alice, finding a refugee's courage, dodged through
the scurrying couples, seated herself in a chair on the outskirts
of this colony of elders, and began to talk eagerly to the matron
nearest her. The matron seemed unaccustomed to so much vivacity,
and responded but dryly, whereupon Alice was more vivacious than
ever; for she meant now to present the picture of a jolly girl
too much interested in these wise older women to bother about
every foolish young man who asked her for a dance.

Her matron was constrained to go so far as to supply a tolerant
nod, now and then, in complement to the girl's animation,
and Alice was grateful for the nods. In this fashion she
supplemented the exhausted resources of the dressing-room and the
box-tree nook; and lived through two more dances, when again Mr.
Frank Dowling presented himself as a partner.

She needed no pretense to seek the dressing-room for repairs
after that number; this time they were necessary and genuine.
Dowling waited for her, and when she came out he explained for
the fourth or fifth time how the accident had happened. "It was
entirely those other people's fault," he said. "They got me in a
kind of a corner, because neither of those fellows knows the
least thing about guiding; they just jam ahead and expect
everybody to get out of their way. It was Charlotte Thom's
diamond crescent pin that got caught on your dress in the back
and made such a----"