Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/94

84 one of the chairs up against the wall, and wait until she was found. She approached them.

Suddenly one of the Alliance's hostesses tapped on something.

"Listen, Reds, a moment please," she said, in a hurried, business-like voice. "Will all the girls in this group with a number over twenty-seven, please go over in front of the platform. We have more girls than men here to-night, and all reds over number twenty-seven will be given girls for partners, just as soon as we can get at it."

Reba glanced down at her thirty-three. Until that moment she hadn't realized how much she had been counting on this golden opportunity. She had drawn a luckless number! A girl for a partner! Why, she danced with girls every noon! A girl! How cruel! She sank down in one of the empty chairs behind her. And just chance too, she protested—no fault of hers.

Two months before, Reba would have dumbly accepted the unfortunate circumstance as inevitable. But the new spirit within her rebelled, groped for a way out. What was there to do? Was there anything? Was there any way to change the number? Abruptly, Lollie Terrence and the discarded yellow card back of the radiator flashed across her mind. Dared she? "You must find the roundabout ways to the thing you want," Cousin Pattie had said. "In spite of," was Cousin Pattie's motto. There was time enough. Nobody had seen her number. Nobody would know. What wouldn't suit Lollie might be very acceptable to her. Reba crushed the useless "thirty-three" inside her pink sash, got up, and threaded her way around the edge of the hall again.