Back of her lay disappointment and sadness, ahead of her lay only hope. It was in this mood that she went with her aunt one Friday evening to a dance at Manhattan Casino. They had been invited to join a box party in which were included several younger people, three or four young men and three girls beside Mimi, in addition to Mrs. Rogers and two older persons. For the dance Mimi had made for herself a party dress of pale green charmeuse-green with the greenness of young leaves in springtime—a green that was indefinably between jade and Eau-de-Nil.
“You look like a rosebud—a marvellously golden flower springing out of its leafy greenness,” Tom Henderson whispered to her as they danced together.
The not very subtle compliment pleased Mimi. She was happy, too, she was capable of pleasure from such a source—she had thought herself impervious to polite remarks of this sort—she fancied she had put all this behind her forever. She was glad that this was not so—after all, she yet was young. And he had seemed so sincere when he had said it.
All the evening she danced, danced with a lightness and ease that brought young men in droves to the box when she rested there between dances. Her feet seemed endowed with wings, for she moved over the floor without conscious effort. And the music! She had heard of Ford Dabney, had been told of the way in which his orchestra could play. But she had never dreamed that any human beings could entice from inanimate objects such intoxicating, inspiriting music. Once, and once only, was she able to sit in the box and watch the dancers.
“It’s a pretty sight,” her aunt said to her.
“Pretty? That isn’t the word for it!” she enthusiastically declared.
It was a waltz. Faces of all colours, peeping from gowns of all shades ranging from delicate pinks and blues and lavenders to gorgeously