Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/148

134 time to time. Yet no sooner was I presented to him than he began a quizzing sort of conversation with me that lasted near a half-hour, I should say. Very interested he seemed to hear of my previous life, having in full measure that naïve curiosity about one which Americans take so little pains to hide. Like the other natives I had met that evening, he was especially concerned to know what I thought of Red Gap. The chat was not at all unpleasant, as he seemed to be a well-informed person, and it was not without regret that I noted the approach of Cousin Egbert in company with a pleasant-faced, middle-aged lady in Oriental garb, carrying a tambourine.

"Mrs. Ballard, allow me to make you acquainted with my friend Colonel Ruggles!" Thus Cousin Egbert performed his ceremony. The lady grasped my hand with great cordiality.

"You men have monopolized the Colonel long enough," she began with a large coquetry that I found not unpleasing, and firmly grasping my arm she led me off in the direction of the refreshment pavilion, where I was playfully let to know that I should purchase her bits of refreshment, coffee, plum-cake, an ice, things of that sort. Through it all she kept up a running fire of banter, from time to time presenting me to other women young and old who happened about us, all of whom betrayed an interest in my personality that was not unflattering, even from this commoner sort of the town's people.

Nor would my new friend release me when she had refreshed herself, but had it that I must dance with her. I had now to confess that I was unskilled in the native American folkdances which I had observed being performed,