“What do you like?” he asked.  “If you tell me what you like, I—­I’ll see that you get it.”

“You’re very powerful, aren’t you?  You sound like a fairy godmother.”

“You look like a fairy.  That’s just what you do look like.”

“I like horses much better than motors,” said Sheila.  “I thought the West would be full of adorable little ponies.  I thought you’d ride like wizards, bucking—­you know.”

“Well, I can ride.  But, I guess you’ve been going to the movies or the Wild West shows.  This town must seem kind of dead after Noo York.”

“I hate the movies,” said Sheila sweetly.

“Say, it would be easy to get a pony for you as soon as the snow goes.  I sold my horse when Dad bought me my Ford.”

“Sold him?  Sold your own special horse!”

“Well, yes, Miss Arundel.  Does that make you think awfully bad of me?”

“Yes.  It does.  It makes me think awfully ‘bad’ of you.  If I had a horse, I’d—­I’d tie him to my bedpost at night and feed him on rose-leaves and tie ribbons in his mane.”

Jim laughed, delighted at her childishness.  It brought back something of his own assurance.

“I don’t think Pap Hudson would quite stand for that, would he?  Seems to me as if—­”

But here his partner stopped short, turned against his arm, and her face shone with a sudden friendly sweetness of surprise.  “There’s Dickie!”

She left Jim, she slipped across the floor.  Dickie limped toward her.  His face was white.

“Dickie!  I’m so glad you came.  Somehow I didn’t expect you to be here.  But you’re lame!  Then you can’t dance.  What a shame.  After Mr. Greely and I have finished this, could you sit one out with me?”

“Yes’m,” whispered Dickie.

He was not as inexpressive as it might seem however.  His face, a rather startling face here in this crowded, boisterous room, a face that seemed to have come in out of the night bringing with it a quality of eternal childhood, of quaint, half-forgotten dreams—­his face was very expressive.  So much so, that Sheila, embarrassed, went back almost abruptly to Jim.  Her smile was left to bewilder Dickie.  He began to describe it to himself.  And this was the first time a woman had stirred that mysterious trouble in his brain.

“It’s not like a smile at all,” thought Dickie, the dancing crowd invisible to him; “it’s like something—­it’s—­what is it?  It’s as if the wind blew it into her face and blew it out again.  It doesn’t come from anywhere, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, at least not anywhere a fellow knows ...”  Here he was rudely joggled by a passing elbow and the pain of his ankle brought a sharp “Damn!” out of him.  He found a niche to lean in, and he watched Sheila and Jim.  He found himself not quite so overwhelmed as usual by admiration of his friend.  His mood was even very faintly critical.  But, as the dance came to an end, Dickie fell a prey