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"That's æsthetic dancing, my dear; æsthetic dancing is meant to be seen by men who don't know how to dance. It's a kind of last arrow in a girl's quiver which may bring him down when he's gone too far for ordinary weapons—it's expensive to learn."

"I should think it would be," agreed Beatrice, who did not follow these innuendoes.

Abner looked at Adelaide seriously. He thought she was the limberest girl he had ever seen. An impulse came to him that he would like to dance with Adelaide, but he said nothing about it. After she had gone away, a vision of her swaying over Beatrice's arm, taking high, pointed steps to the music, lingered with him and became a part of his growing amorousness for the girl. After this brief dance he never looked at her again without sensing in her the possibility of her limberness, her pointed tread, and the swaying of her delicately modelled torso.

Notwithstanding these symptoms it was not until the evening of Adelaide's dance that Abner discovered whither his emotions tended. As Beatrice Belle drove over to the Jones residence she warned Abner as to what he was about to see.

"What was the last dance you went to, Abner?" she began diplomatically.

"Old man Warrington's, clost to Arntown."

"In the country?"

"Yeh."

"Well, of course they don't dance town dances in the country. Town dances may look a little funny to you at first—ever'body dancin' like they do, lots o' times with perfect strangers—jest git interduced an' go to dancin' with their arms aroun' each other tangoing and charleston-ing."

"It won't look funny to me," protested Abner, disliking Beatrice Belle's patronage. "I guess I'm hard-boiled, all right. I seen things at the railroad camp. . . ."

"Well, it looked funny to me at first." Beatrice Belle swerved her car to avoid a rut. "I felt the funniest when