"
The news had the desired effect. Six noses, which were being vigorously
powdered, were neglected while their owners burst forth in a chorus of
exclamations sufficiently charged with envious admiration to satisfy the
most rapacious debutante.
"I should think you'd be perfectly paralyzed trying to think of things to
talk to him about," said little Bessie Meed, who had not yet put her hair
up. "Older men scare me stiff."
"They don't me," declared Lou Pierce; "they make me tired. Sitting out
dances, and holding hands, and talking high-brow. When I come to a dance
I want to dance. Give me Johnnie Rawlings or Pink Bailey and a good old
jazz."
Eleanor pinned on her orchids and moved away. The girls seemed incredibly
young and noisy and crass. Less than six months ago she, too, was romping
through the dances with Jimmy and Pink, and imagining that a fox-trot
divided between ten partners constituted the height of enjoyment. Mr.
Phipps had told her in the summer that she was changing. "The little
butterfly is emerging from her chrysalis," was the poetic way he had
phrased it, with an accompanying look that spoke volumes.
Once on the dance floor, however, she forgot her superior mood and
enjoyed herself inordinately until supper-time.
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