"
"You MUSTN'T leave me, Walter," she whispered, hastily.
"Somebody'll come for me before long, but until they do----"
"Well, couldn't you sit somewhere?"
"No, no! There isn't any one I could sit with."
"Well, why not? Look at those ole dames in the corners. What's
the matter your tyin' up with some o' them for a while?"
"PLEASE, Walter; no!"
In fact, that indomitable smile of hers was the more difficult to
maintain because of these very elders to whom Walter referred.
They were mothers of girls among the dancers, and they were there
to fend and contrive for their offspring; to keep them in
countenance through any trial; to lend them diplomacy in the
carrying out of all enterprises; to be "background" for them; and
in these essentially biological functionings to imitate their own
matings and renew the excitement of their nuptial periods. Older
men, husbands of these ladies and fathers of eligible girls, were
also to be seen, most of them with Mr. Palmer in a billiard-room
across the corridor. Mr. and Mrs. Adams had not been invited.
"Of course papa and mama just barely know Mildred Palmer," Alice
thought, "and most of the other girls' fathers and mothers are
old friends of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, but I do think she might
have ASKED papa and mama, anyway--she needn't have been afraid
just to ask them; she knew they couldn't come.
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