Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/96



UMBER FOUR" was standing by himself, up against the wall, withdrawn from the group of eager partner-searchers. He was tall, and lank—a big-proportioned fellow. His long arms were hanging straight down by his sides in a kind of helpless fashion. His shoulders were stooped, and his chin thrust forward in the way overgrown boys have sometimes when they try to appear less conspicuous.

All Reba saw at first was the yellow four pinned on the lapel of his coat, but the discerning Lollie Terrence had taken in, in a single glance, every inch of the yellow-ticketed six feet of laughable ungainliness. The cheap suit of clothes, made out of loosely woven homespun material, shapeless as burlap and not unlike it in color, the long red wrists hanging out of sleeves ridiculously too short, and the side-splitting bit of wrinkled white sock, showing above a clumsy boot-top, had not escaped Lollie. Nor the shock of thick, sand-colored hair either, nor the crimson face beneath it. Reba missed all these details as she timidly approached her partner. Ought she to speak first, she wondered? She waited a second or two. It appeared she would have to, for "Number four" made no move to address her as she hovered close a minute.

"Excuse me," she began, turning toward him abruptly, and trying to keep her voice steady. (She had never spoken to an entire stranger in this manner