"Jest ask me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille." Pliny Pickett, self-appointed caller of square dances, was arranging the floor. "One more couple wanted to this end," he bellowed. "Here's two couples a-waitin'. Don't hang back. Music's a-waitin'.... Right there. All ready?... Nope. One couple needed in the middle." Homer and Yvette approached that square where three couples awaited the fourth to complete their set. They took their places, to the manifest embarrassment of the other six. Suddenly Norma Grainger whispered something to her young man and tugged at his arm. He looked sidewise, sheepishly, at Homer, and hung back. "You come right along," said Norma. "I hain't goin' to have it said of me that I danced in no set with her." "Nor me," said Marion Towne, also tugging at her escort. The young men were forced to give way, and, not too proud to cast glances of placating nature at Homer, they fell from their places and walked to the benches around the hall. Yvette and Homer were left standing alone, conspicuous, the center of all eyes. Homer clenched his fists and glared about him; then--for in his ungainly body there resided something that is essential to manhood, and without which none may be called a gentleman--he offered his arm to Yvette. "I guess we better go," he said, softly. Then squaring his powerful shoulders and glancing about him with a real dignity which Scattergood Baines, sitting in one corner, noted and applauded, he led the girl from the room. "I'll see you home," he said, formally. "I hain't got nothin' to say." "It--it's not your fault," she said, tremulously. "Somebody'll wisht it wa'n't their fault 'fore mornin'," he answered. "I shouldn't have gone." "Why? Hain't you as good as any of them, and better? Hain't you the pertiest girl I ever see?... You hain't mad with _me_, be you?" "'No.... Not with anybody, I guess. I--I ought to be used to it. I--" She began to cry. It was a dark spot there on the bridge. Homer was not apt at words, but he could feel and he did feel. It was no mere impulse to comfort a pretty girl that moved him to inclose her with his muscular arms and to press her to him none too gently. "I kin lick the hull world fer you," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her wet cheek again and again, and repeated his ability to thrash all comers in her cause, and stated his desire to undertake exactly that task for the term of her natural life. "If you was to marry me," he said, "they wouldn't nobody dast trample on you.... You're a-goin' to marry me, hain't you?" "I--I don't know.... You--you don't know anything about me." "Calc'late I know enough," he said. "Your folks wouldn't put up with it." "Huh!"