Quin

								

out-jazz the piano, and the drum got its ambition roused and joined in
the competition, and the young couple who were not supposed to be dancing
out-danced everything on the floor!
Quin's heart might have adjusted itself to that first dance, but the
rollicking encore, together with the emotional shock it sustained every
time those destructive eyes were trained upon him, was too much for it.
"Say, would you mind stopping a bit?--just for a second?" he gasped, when
his breath seemed about to desert him permanently.
"You surely aren't tired?" scoffed the young lady, lifting a pair of
finely arched eyebrows.
"No; but, you see--as a matter of fact, ever since I was gassed----"
"Gassed!"
The word acted like a charm. The girl's sensitive face, over which the
expressions played like sunlight on water, softened to instant sympathy,
and Quin, who up to now had been merely a partner, suddenly found himself
individual.
"Did you see much actual service?" she asked, her eyes wide with
interest.
"Sure," said Quin, bracing himself against a post and trying to keep his
breath from coming in jerks; "saw sixteen months of it."
Her quick glance swept from the long scar on his forehead to the bar on
his breast.
"What do all those stars on the rainbow ribbon mean?" she demanded.
"Major engagements," said Quin diffidently.
"And the silver one in the middle?"
"A citation," He glanced around to make sure none of the other boys were
near, then confessed, as if to a crime: "That's where I got my medal."
"Come over here and sit down this minute," she commanded. "You've got to
tell me all about it."
It would be very pleasant to chronicle the fact that our hero modestly
declined to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered. But it must
be borne in mind that, his heart having failed him at a critical hour, he
had to fall back upon his tongue as the only means at hand of detaining
the Celestial Being who at any moment might depart. With what breath he
had left he told his story, and, having a good story to tell, he did it
full justice. Sometimes, to be sure, he got his pronouns mixed, and once
he lost the thread of his discourse entirely; but that was when he became
too conscious of those star-like eyes and the flattering absorption of
the little lady who for one transcendent moment was deigning "to love him
for the dangers he had passed." With unabated interest and curiosity she
drank in every detail of his recital, her half-parted lips only closing
occasionally to say, "Wonderful!" or "How perfectly wonderful!"
On and on went the music, round and round went the dancers, and still the
private in the uniform that was too big and the officer's girl in blue
and gray sat in the alcove, totally oblivious to everything but each
other.
It was not until the girl happened to look at the ridiculous little watch
that was pretending to keep time on her wrist that the spell was broken.