“These high-binders’ll be after you to make you take ’em wherever they want to go.
You better not begin that way.”
And, sure enough, Louise Ratterer, not to be abashed by what her brother had just said, observed:
“You dance, don’t you, Mr. Griffiths?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Clyde, suddenly brought back to reality by this inquiry and regretting most violently the handicap this was likely to prove in this group.
“But you bet I wish I did now,” he added gallantly and almost appealingly, looking first at Hortense and then at Greta Miller and Louise.
But all pretended not to notice his preference, although Hortense titillated with her triumph.
She was not convinced that she was so greatly taken with him, but it was something to triumph thus easily and handsomely over these others.
And the others felt it.
“Ain’t that too bad?” she commented, a little indifferently and superiorly now that she realized that she was his preference.
“You might come along with us, you and Tom, if you did.
There’s goin’ to be mostly dancing at Kittie’s.”
Clyde began to feel and look crushed at once.
To think that this girl, to whom of all those here he was most drawn, could dismiss him and his dreams and desires thus easily, and all because he couldn’t dance.
And his accursed home training was responsible for all this.
He felt broken and cheated.
What a boob he must seem not to be able to dance.
And Louise Ratterer looked a little puzzled and indifferent, too.
But Greta Miller, whom he liked less than Hortense, came to his rescue with:
“Oh, it ain’t so hard to learn.
I could show you in a few minutes after dinner if you wanted to.
It’s only a few steps you have to know.
And then you could go, anyhow, if you wanted to.”
Clyde was grateful and said so — determined to learn here or elsewhere at the first opportunity.
Why hadn’t he gone to a dancing school before this, he asked himself.
But the thing that pained him most was the seeming indifference of Hortense now that he had made it clear that he liked her.
Perhaps it was that Bert Gettler, previously mentioned, with whom she had gone to the dance, who was making it impossible for him to interest her.
So he was always to be a failure this way. Oh, gee!
But the moment the dinner was over and while the others were still talking, the first to put on a dance record and come over with hands extended was Hortense, who was determined not to be outdone by her rival in this way.
She was not particularly interested or fascinated by Clyde, at least not to the extent of troubling about him as Greta did.
But if her friend was going to attempt a conquest in this manner, was it not just as well to forestall her?
And so, while Clyde misread her change of attitude to the extent of thinking that she liked him better than he had thought, she took him by the hands, thinking at the same time that he was too bashful.
However, placing his right arm about her waist, his other clasped in hers at her shoulder, she directed his attention to her feet and his and began to illustrate the few primary movements of the dance.
But so eager and grateful was he — almost intense and ridiculous — she did not like him very much, thought him a little unsophisticated and too young.
At the same time, there was a charm about him which caused her to wish to assist him.
And soon he was moving about with her quite easily — and afterwards with Greta and then Louise, but wishing always it was Hortense.
And finally he was pronounced sufficiently skillful to go, if he would.
And now the thought of being near her, being able to dance with her again, drew him so greatly that, despite the fact that three youths, among them that same Bert Gettler, appeared on the scene to escort them, and although he and Ratterer had previously agreed to go to a theater together, he could not help showing how much he would prefer to follow those others — so much so that Ratterer finally agreed to abandon the theater idea.
And soon they were off, Clyde grieving that he could not walk with Hortense, who was with Gettler, and hating his rival because of this; but still attempting to be civil to Louise and Greta, who bestowed sufficient attention on him to make him feel at ease.
Ratterer, having noticed his extreme preference and being alone with him for a moment, said:
“You better not get too stuck on that Hortense Briggs.
I don’t think she’s on the level with anybody.
She’s got that fellow Gettler and others.
She’ll only work you an’ you might not get anything, either.”
But Clyde, in spite of this honest and well-meant caution, was not to be dissuaded.
On sight, and because of the witchery of a smile, the magic and vigor of motion and youth, he was completely infatuated and would have given or done anything for an additional smile or glance or hand pressure.
And that despite the fact that he was dealing with a girl who no more knew her own mind than a moth, and who was just reaching the stage where she was finding it convenient and profitable to use boys of her own years or a little older for whatever pleasures or clothes she desired.
The party proved nothing more than one of those ebullitions of the youthful mating period.
The house of Kittie Keane was little more than a cottage in a poor street under bare December trees.
But to Clyde, because of the passion for a pretty face that was suddenly lit in him, it had the color and the form and gayety of romance itself.