Now, Quin's smile was his chief asset in the way of looks. It was a leisurely smile, that began far below the surface and sent preliminary ripples up to his eyes and the corners of his big mouth, and broke through at last in a radiant flash of good humor. In this case it met a very prompt answer under the big hat. "You see, I'm not supposed to be dancing," she explained rather condescendingly. "Nor me, either," said Quin, breathing heavily. Then the band decided to be accommodating, and the saxophone decided to out-jazz the piano, and the drum got its ambition roused and joined in the competition, and the young couple who were not supposed to be dancing out-danced everything on the floor! Quin's heart might have adjusted itself to that first dance, but the rollicking encore, together with the emotional shock it sustained every time those destructive eyes were trained upon him, was too much for it. "Say, would you mind stopping a bit?--just for a second?" he gasped, when his breath seemed about to desert him permanently. "You surely aren't _tired_?" scoffed the young lady, lifting a pair of finely arched eyebrows. "No; but, you see--as a matter of fact, ever since I was gassed----" "Gassed!" The word acted like a charm. The girl's sensitive face, over which the expressions played like sunlight on water, softened to instant sympathy, and Quin, who up to now had been merely a partner, suddenly found himself individual. "Did you see much actual service?" she asked, her eyes wide with interest. "Sure," said Quin, bracing himself against a post and trying to keep his breath from coming in jerks; "saw sixteen months of it." Her quick glance swept from the long scar on his forehead to the bar on his breast. "What do all those stars on the rainbow ribbon mean?" she demanded. "Major engagements," said Quin diffidently. "And the silver one in the middle?" "A citation," He glanced around to make sure none of the other boys were near, then confessed, as if to a crime: "That's where I got my medal." "Come over here and sit down this minute," she commanded. "You've got to tell me all about it."