"Now we can't dance," repeated Agnes, when the laughter had somewhat subsided.
"Oh, Neale can dance just as well," Trix said, carelessly. "Come on, Neale! You know this is _our_ dance."
Of course Neale could dance in his walking shoes. But he saw Agnes' woebegone face and he hesitated.
"It's too bad, Aggie," he said. "If it wasn't so far-----"
"Why, Neale O'Neill" snapped Trix, unwisely. "You don't mean to say you'd be foolish enough to go clear back to the Corner House for those girls' slippers?"
Perhaps it was just this opposition that was needed to start Neale off. He pulled his cap from his pocket and turned toward the door, with a shrug. "I guess I can get back in an hour, Ag. Don't you and Ruth dance much in your heavy shoes until then. You'll tire yourselves all out."
"Why, Neale O'Neill" cried Trix. "You won't do it?"
Even Ruth murmured against the boy's making the trip for the slippers. "We can get along, Neale," she said, in her quiet way.
"And you promised to dance with me this first dance," declared Trix, angrily, as the music began.
Neale did not pay much attention to her--at the moment. "It's my fault, I guess," he said, laughing. "I'll go back for them, Ag."
But Trix got right between him and the door. "Now! you sha'n't go off and leave me in the lurch that way, Neale O'Neill" she cried, shrilly.
"Aw----There are other dances. Wait till I come back," he said.
"You can dance in the shoes you have on," Trix said, sharply.
"But _we_ can't, Trix," interposed Agnes, much distressed. "Ruth and I, you know----"
"I don't care!" interrupted Trix, boiling over at last. "You Corner House girls are the most selfish things! You'd spoil his fun for half the party----"
"Aw, don't bother!" growled Neale, in much disgust.
"Guess she thinks she owns you, Neale," chuckled one of the boys, adding fuel to the flames. Neale did not feel any too pleasant after that. He flung away from Trix Severn's detaining grasp.
"I'm going--it isn't any of _your_ concern," he muttered, to the angry girl.
Ruth bore Agnes away. She was half crying. The rift in the intimacy between her soulmate and herself was apparent to all.
To make the matter worse--according to Trix's version--when Neale finally returned, almost breathless, with the mislaid slippers, he insisted, first of all, upon dancing with Ruth and Agnes. Then he would have favored Trix (Ruth had advised it), but the angry girl would not speak to him.