It was the regular ballroom twaddle. Oceans of this stuff is talked by watching, waiting chaperons, who believe each other's statements with credulity and an unoriginality quite wonderful in the face of what is actually happening before them. Miss Reely turned back to Sard. "I wish you girls,"--she dropped her handkerchief; the exquisite Tawny restored it--"I wish you girls understood what charm delicacy and--er--modesty have for a man." Tawny nodded. "I'm for it myself," he remarked sympathetically. "But Minga doesn't want to charm a man, especially," said Sard gaily. "She just likes to dance that way because everybody's doing it; she's probably sorry she doesn't reach farther up Shipman's arm because that would look more like the picture in 'Vogue.'" Sard, motioning to the other cheek-to-cheek couples, nodded mischievously at Shipman. Her own first dance had been instantly taken and with a lively glow of color and enthusiasm she was somehow glad to have the lawyer see it to be so. She cast an appreciative eye on Minga's little azure form with its butterfly corsage, the soft arms bare and free. "Isn't she a darling?" she turned to Tawny Troop. "You don't know how lucky you are." To her astonishment the youth swept her with raised eyebrows, eyes of nonchalance. "Oh, I say, didn't you know that was off?" said Troop with his best hotel accent. To his suggestion that they should dance again she took her easy position. Sard was the instinctively high-bred dancer, the kind of a girl who without affectation can give herself and her partner instant distinction, with a poise, an éclat of rhythmic motion that is very rare. Now as they circled the room she looked up to the smooth face of the elegant Tawny. "What did you mean about yours and Minga's engagement? Surely you haven't quarreled?" "I've broken it," announced the youth distastefully. Tawny drew himself up with an air. "I couldn't stand that last fandango of hers," said young Tawny. "Don't want to marry a tough." The music stopped with a splurge. Sard stood staring at the young fellow. "You've broken it?" her glance went quickly to Minga, who was leaving the ballroom with Shipman,--the dark head bent down to the little curly bob. "Oh-h!" Sard accused him mockingly. "You're jealous! you couldn't mean that about Minga! She's everybody's sweetheart; she always will be. Why, even my father----" Young Troop stiffened. "I don't mind ordinary things, the game, you know--I----" Tawny had the grace to hesitate, then snapped, quite finally for one of his youth--"I like any line that's decent, but when you see your fiancée in the arms of a hired man, a tramp she's spent the whole afternoon with, why you----" "What do you mean?" asked Sard. Tawny Troop, a young person of not very fine instinct, had forgotten or did not know the mettle of the girl to whom he spoke.