Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/276

 "Well, I like your insolence."

"I'm glad you do. I'll come as I come to all such functions, an outsider. I'll sit out here on the porch in the shadows and see it from afar. If I could only dance, I assure you I'd try to fill every number of your card. Not being able to do so, I simply decline to make a fool of myself."

"For that compliment, I'll compromise with you. Wear that big pompous Prince Albert suit you spoke in at Independence, and I'll come out on the porch and chat with you a while."

He sat there now in the shadows waiting for this ball to begin. It was a clear night the first week in June. The new moon was hanging just over the tree tops. His heart was full to bursting with the thought that the girl he loved would, in a few minutes, be whirling over that polished floor to the strains of a waltz, with another man's arm around her. He never knew how deeply he hated dancing before—that rhythmic touch of the human body, set to the melody of motion, and voiced in the passionate cry of music. He felt its challenge to his love to mortal combat,—his love that claimed this one woman as his own, body and soul!

The music from the Italian band was in full swing, its plaintive notes instinct with the passion of sunny Italy, a music all Southern people love.

He felt that he should choke. A sudden thought came to him. Tearing a sheet of paper from a note book he scrawled this line upon it.

"Dear Miss Sallie:—Please let me see you a moment in the parlour before you enter the ball-room. Gaston."

At least he would see her in her ball costume first. Yes, and if she should hate him for it, he would beg her not to dance that night. He saw McLeod, bowing and scraping in the ball-room arrayed in faultless full