If it had been any one but Anne Beaumont!
"I don't like turning conventionalities topsy-turvy, Sophie," she said,
as we went downstairs; "I don't believe I can ever ask a man to dance
with me."
"Other women do," I murmured.
"My husband would never have agreed to such a thing," Anne stated.
That is where Anne always had the advantage of me. Although she had
been a widow for five years, she still quoted the authoritative
masculine point of view, while I, having in my teens chosen a career
instead of a husband, and never having rectified my mistake, was forced
to fall back on the unsupported feminine.
"Perhaps you'd rather sit out the dances," was my somewhat malicious
way of putting it.
Anne, poised like a white butterfly on the landing, turned on me a
reproachful glance.
"No woman would rather be a wallflower," she affirmed.
"Of course not," I returned promptly, "and I don't believe it is going
to be very bad after the first plunge."
Anne leaned over the stair rail and surveyed the formidable group of
men in the lower hall. "It's dreadful," she said. Then, gathering about
her a scarf of silver tissue, she commanded, "You go first, Sophie,"
and we descended together.
At the foot of the stairs, Charlemagne Dabney met us.
"Charlie, boy," Anne said plaintively, "ask me to dance with you. I
simply can't get used to the leap-year idea----"
And I, having prepared to blunder into a formal, "May I have the
pleasure?" was so illumined by her method that I employed it with
success--for though I lacked Anne's appealing coquetry, I challenged
old friends, and my card was soon filled.
But Anne did not depend on old friends. She danced with the count
from Hungary, the multi-millionaire from the West, the Senator from
Kentucky, and to fill up spaces she fell back on Charlemagne Dabney.
"I think it was lovely of you," she told him at supper, "to open the
house for the week-end and the dance. Only, it's too bad that you
insist on the leap-year idea for the whole time."
Across the table Elizabeth Ames sparkled radiantly. "I like it. I
didn't dance with a single bore, and before I go home I am going to ask
all of the men to marry me!"
Anne's face wore its most gracious expression, but I knew how she felt.
Elizabeth is eighteen and pretty. Anne is twice eighteen and pretty.
And there's a difference.
Anne opened her eyes very wide and said to Charlemagne, "You see what
you've done? Elizabeth is going to ask you to marry her."
Charlemagne smiled at Elizabeth. "No such good luck. There are too many
young fellows who will accept her before she gives me the chance."