Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/168

 It had been a matter of much dispute with himself how many dances with her he could take; in fact, he had argued whether he should engage Fidelia for any dances; but his wish had conquered and he had reënforced it by the argument that it would look "queer" to the college.

When he reached Alice, she was sitting alone with deserted chairs on both sides. "Ours" he said and tried to make it sound in the old way when "ours" told a thrilling thing and his pulses pricked with his impatience for her.

She sat looking up at him and his eyes went from hers to her white, slender shoulders. Her new dress was blue, almost the color of the sapphires in the new bracelet on her slender arm. The slightness, the whiteness of her, which this blue accentuated, used to stir him, and her sweetness with that look of love which would fill her eyes.

It was not there now, that look; in its place, fear. She tried to smile. He thought with alarm: "She's going to cry."

But Alice didn't; she stood up and gave her right hand to his left and he put his arm about her.

How small she seemed; how cool; how dully she danced. He gripped her tighter to rouse her and she responded at the instant but after a second, it was the same as before. Her right hand, clasping his left hand and extended, pulled at him to go this way, now that way, in response to her instinct to guide him. It offended him out of all proportion to its gentle impulse. Naturally she did this; she had taught him to dance;