“Isn't it jolly good fun?” she demanded, when the figure was finished; and now Kinney went up to the first-class clog-dancer, and prevailed with him to show his skill. He seemed to comply on condition that the whistler should furnish the music; he came forward with a bashful hauteur, bridling stiffly like a girl, and struck into the laborious and monotonous jig which is, perhaps, our national dance. He was exquisitely shaped, and as he danced he suppled more and more, while the whistler warbled a wilder and swifter strain, and kept time with his hands. There was something that stirred the blood in the fury of the strain and dance. When it was done, Mrs. Macallister caught off her cap and ran round among the spectators to make them pay; she excused no one, and she gave the money to Kinney, telling him to get his loggers something to keep the cold out. “I should say whiskey, if I were in the Canadian bush,” she suggested. “Well, _I_ guess we sha'n't say anything of that sort in _this_ camp,” said Kinney. She turned upon Bartley, “I know Mr. Hubbard is dying to do something. Do something, Mr. Hubbard!” Bartley looked up in surprise at this interpretation of his tacit wish to distinguish himself before her. “Come, sing us some of your student songs.” Bartley's vanity had confided the fact of his college training to her, and he was really thinking just then that he would like to give them a serio-comic song, for which he had been famous with his class. He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was one of those which is partly spoken and acted; he really did it very well; but the Willett and Witherby ladies did not seem to understand it quite; and the gentlemen looked as if they thought this very undignified business for an educated American. Mrs. Macallister feigned a yawn, and put up her hand to hide it. “_Oh_, what a styupid song!” she said. She sprang to her feet, and began to put on her wraps. The others were glad of this signal to go, and followed her example. “Good by!” she cried, giving her hand to Kinney. “_I_ don't think your ideas are ridiculous. I think there's no end of good sense in them, I assure you. I hope you won't leave off that regard for the brain in your cooking. Good by!” She waved her hand to the Americans, and then to the Kanucks, as she passed out between their respectfully parted ranks. “Adieu, messieurs!” She merely nodded to Bartley; the others parted from him coldly, as he fancied, and it seemed to him that he had been made responsible for that woman's coquetries, when he was conscious, all the time, of having forborne even to meet them half-way. But this was not so much to his credit as he imagined. The flirt can only practise her audacities safely by grace of those upon whom she uses them, and if men really met them half-way there could be no such tiling as flirting. XI.