Why, Katie wondered, should one not wish to dance with “strange men.”  It seemed so curious a thing to shrink from.  Katie herself had never felt at all strange with “strange men.”  Nice fellows were nice fellows the world over, and she never felt farther from strange than when dancing with a nice man—­strange or otherwise.  Even in the swing of her gayety Katie wondered what it was could make one feel like that.  And she wondered what Wayne must think of that plaintive little “Just our own” which she was sure he had overheard.

Katie had come out at last to say she thought they should go.  Ann must not get too tired.

But just then the orchestra began dreaming out a waltz, one of those waltzes lovers love to remember having danced together.  “Now there,” said Wayne, “is a nice peaceful waltz.  You’ll have to wait, Katie,” and his arm was about Ann and they had glided away together.

Katie told her cousin she would rather not dance.  “Let’s stand here and watch,” she said.

Couple after couple passed by, not the crowd of the gay two-step of a few moments before.  Few were talking; some were gently humming, many dreaming—­with a veiled smile for the dream.  It was one of those waltzes to find its way back to cherished moments, flood with lovely color the dear things held apart.  Fred was saying he wished Helen were there.  Katie turned from the vivid picture out to the subtle night—­warm summer’s night.  The dreaming music carried her back to vanished things—­other waltzes, other warm summer’s nights, to the times when she had been, in her light-hearted fashion, in love, to those various flirtations for which she had more tenderness than regret just for the glimpses they brought.  And suddenly the heart of things gone seemed to flow into a great longing for that never known tenderness and wildness of feeling that sobbed in the music.  She was being borne out to the heart of the night, and at the heart of the night some one waited for her with arms held out.  But as she was swept nearer the some one was the man who mended the boats!  With a little catch of her breath for that sorry twist of her consciousness that must make lovely moments ludicrous ones, she turned back to the bright room—­crowded, colorful, moving room which seemed set in the vast, soft night.

Her brother was just passing—­her brother and her friend Ann Forrest.  They did not look out at her.  They did not seem to know that Katie was near.  She had never seen Ann’s face so beautiful.  It had that beauty she had all the while seen as possible for it, only more intense, more exalted than she had been able to foresee it.  The music stopped on a sob.  Every one was still for an instant—­then they were applauding for more.  Ann was not clapping.  Katie had never seen anything as beautiful as that look of rapt loveliness on Ann’s face as she stood there waiting.  She might have been the very spirit of love waiting in the mists at the heart of the night.  As softly the music began again and Wayne once more guided her in and out among those boys and girls—­boys and girls for whom life had meant little more than laughing and dancing—­Katie had a piercing vision of the girl with her hands over her face stumbling on toward the river.