Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/205

Rh Her dusky cheeks were flushed richly, and her eyes seemed to glow with a deep, inner fire. The first dance with Kenneth had gone. Their steps fitted, and they swung in perfect harmony with the violins. Not a dozen words were exchanged between them, yet their spirits had been in the momentary close harmony of the rhythm, and they had separated with a vague feeling of having gained in intimacy. This feeling neither experienced to the same degree with any other of their partners. Yet it was merely a question of rhythm, of catching just exactly the throb and swing of the violins.

It had a practical application, however, as the fifth extra began. Daphne, alone for a instant, saw approaching her across, the crowded floor a be-spectacled, gawky youth she had suffered from at dancing school. At the same instant she caught Kenneth's eye. On the impulse, before she thought, she sent him a signal of distress. Instantly he responded, leaving abruptly the girl with whom he was talking, and making his way with eel-like dexterity through the crowded dancers.

"Come, come quick!" she breathed to him, clutching his arm.

Together they stepped behind the screen of palms and out through the barn door into the garden.

"You've saved my life!" laughed Daphne, breathless. "I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't rescued me. It's that dreadful Mitchell boy, bearing down on me like a goggle-eyed Fate. I didn't dare stay another second because I remember vaguely his saying something about some extra. And he's so persistent. Do you suppose he saw us?"

"He might have," said Kenneth, shrewdly. "I think we'd better move a little."

"Didn't you have this dance engaged?"

Kenneth hesitated.

"Yes, I did," he stated boldly, "and I don't care. It was a duty thing."

"Oh!" she cried, struck with compunction, "and you're the host!" She chuckled wickedly. "I ought to make you go back. But I don't care either. We are highly immoral."

They looked back toward the stable. It seemed to be bursting with light that leaked out of various cracks and crannies,