“Say, Curly,” whispered Del Hickman hoarsely to his neighbour, “ef somethin’ don’t turn loose right soon I’m due to die right here.  I’m thirstier’n if this here floor was the Staked Plains.”

“Same here,” said Curly in a muttered undertone.  “But I reckon we’re here till the round-up’s made.  When she do set loose, you watch me rope that littlest waiter girl.  She taken my eye, fer shore.”

“That’s all right, friend,” said Del, apparently relieved.  “I didn’t know but you’d drew to the red-headed waiter girl.  I sorter ’lowed I’d drift over in thataway, when she starts up.”

Sam, the driver, was sitting rapt, staring mutely across the great gulf fixed between him and Nora, the head waiter.  Nora, by reason of her authority in position, was entitled to wear a costume of white, whereas the waiters of lower rank were obliged by house rules to attire themselves in dark skirts.  To Sam’s eyes, therefore, Nora, arrayed in this distinguishing garb, appeared at once the more fair and the more unapproachable.  As she sat, the light glinting upon her glasses, her chin well upheld, her whole attitude austere and commanding, Sam felt his courage sink lower and lower, until he became abject and abased.  Fascinated none the less, he gazed, until Curly poked him sharply and remarked: 

“Which ‘un you goin’ to make a break fer, Sam?”

“I—­I d-d-don’t know,” said Sam, startled and disturbed.

“Reckon you’d like to mingle some with Nory, hey?”

“W-w-w-well—­” began Sam defensively.

“But she don’t see it that way.  Not in a hundred.  Why, she’ll be dancin’ with Cap Franklin, or Batty, er some folks that’s more in her line, you see.  Why in h——­l don’t you pick out somebody more in yer own bunch, like?” Curly was meaning to be only judicial, but he was cruel.  Sam collapsed and sat speechless.  He had long felt that his ambition was sheer presumption.

The hours grew older.  At the head of the hall the musicians manifested more signs of their inexorable purpose.  A sad, protesting squeal came from the accordion.  The violins moaned, but were held firm.  The worst might be precipitated at any moment.

But again there was a transfer of the general attention toward the upper end of the hall.  The door once more opened, and there appeared a little group of three persons, on whom there was fixed a regard so steadfast and so silent that it might well have been seen that they were strangers to all present.  Indeed, there was but one sound audible in the sudden silence which fell as these three entered the room.  Sam, the driver, scraped one foot unwittingly upon the floor as he half leaned forward and looked eagerly at them as they advanced.