On the fourth evening of Yvette's stay in Coldriver there was a dance in the town hall. Especial interest immediately attached to this affair because of the speculations as to whether Homer would be so rash as to invite Yvette as his partner. The village refused to believe the young man would fail them and remain away. That would be a calamity not easily endured, so it set itself to plan its actions in case she made her appearance. It wondered, how she would dress and how she would behave. Every girl in the village who possessed clear title to a young man knew exactly how _she_ would deport herself. The night before the dance no less than a score of young men were informed with finality that they were not to dance with the stranger, nor to be seen in her vicinity. Norma Grainger expressed the will of all when she told Will Peasley that if he danced one dance with that coffee girl she would up and go home alone. In the beginning there was no definite concerted action; it was assured, however, that Yvette would have few partners. Homer did not disappoint his friends. During the first dance he entered the hall with Yvette, and the music all but stopped to stare. Undeniably she was pretty. It was not her prettiness the women resented, however, but her air and her clothes. Actually she wore a dress cut low at the neck, and sleeveless. Coldriver had heard of such garments, and there were those who actually believed them to exist and to be worn by certain women in European society among kings and dukes and other frightfully immoral people. But that one should ever make its appearance in Coldriver, under their very eyes, was a thing so startling, so outrageous, as almost to demand the spontaneous formation of a vigilance committee. Even yet there was no concerted action, but sentiment was crystallizing. Homer and Yvette danced three dances, and Homer's face began to wear a scowl. No less than five young men approached by him with the purpose of securing them as partners for Yvette declined with brevity. "What's the matter with you??" he demanded, belligerently. "There hain't no pertier girl nor no better dancer on the floor." "Mebby so. Hain't noticed. Got all _my_ dances took." "Me too. My girl she says--" "She says what?" snapped Homer. "She says she'll go home if I dance with yourn." "And _I_ say," said Homer, with set jaw, "that you fellers is goin' to dance with Yvette, or there's goin' to be more fights in Coldriver 'n Coldriver ever see before. That's _my_ say." He announced he would be back after the next dance, and that _somebody_ would dance with Yvette. "The feller that refuses," said he, "goes outside with me." He went back to Yvette, who, not lacking in shrewdness, sensed something of the situation. "I wish I hadn't come," she said, uneasily. "I don't ... if you hain't got no objection to dancin' jest with me." "It'll look queer if I dance all of them with you."