"Don't you fret, Joan--remember there's as many young fellows in the world crazy to know girls as there are girls crazy to know them. And dearie"--her voice sank to a friendly whisper--"warm up to 'em a little, can't you? Jolly 'em along. Hot air, you know, talk! No matter what you say, just keep talking. That don't-touch-me, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth air may be all right with the nuns and the old families but it won't go down with the men. Believe me, dearie! I know." It was a well-meant effort, which had the effect of congealing the already subdued Joan into something resembling a marble effigy. The Major shortly returned, bearing urbanely in his wake a blond young man who seemed not too unwilling. "I want you to meet my wife, sir," he was saying. "I want to have the pleasure of presenting you to my daughter. Fancy the coincidence, my dears--this gentleman turns out to be the son of an old schoolmate!" Effie May welcomed them with enthusiasm. "Good for you! I had my money on you, Dickums! Five minutes, and the son of a schoolmate! It's a record!--Ta-ta, young people! Enjoy yourselves," was her valedictory as she whirled the Major away, waving her hand over his shoulder. Joan stared aghast at the blond young man, who said, "She is an awfully jolly sort, your mother, isn't she?" "Very jolly," agreed Joan faintly. "But she's not my mother." "Oh!" A silence fell. He seemed to be waiting for her to break it. She gulped, and said in a firm voice, "Did you come to ask me to dance?" The young man indicated politely that such was his intention. "You couldn't very well help yourself, could you?" she remarked, and suddenly burst out laughing--rather hysterical laughter in which the young man joined embarrassedly. "Of course if you'd rather talk--" he murmured. Joan jumped to her feet. "Oh, but I wouldn't! I'd rather do _anything_ than talk--no matter what I say, just talk, warm up to 'em, hot air--I mean," she explained desperately, "I'm much too shy to talk!" "You don't sound very shy." "I know--they're the worst sort, the ones who hide it." They commenced silently to dance. Presently he confessed, "I'm rather--shy, myself." "Goody!" she exclaimed with relief. "Then we needn't bother to talk at all." They parted quite reluctantly when a whistle blew for the "circle"--a useful innovation for breaking up relations, by whose aid Joan found herself exchanging partners at intervals throughout the evening without finding herself too long on the hands of any. She blessed the inventor of the circle. Youth and a pair of winged feet came to her rescue, and she forgot her strangeness in sheer joy of motion. The people she danced with that night were not men; they were as trees walking, for all the personal memory she kept of them.