Penrod was scarlet; he
wished to dance the first dance with Marjorie, and the second and
the third and all the other dances, and he strongly desired to
sit with her "at refreshments"; but he had been unable to ask for
a single one of these privileges. It would have been impossible
for him to state why he was thus dumb, although the reason was
simple and wholly complimentary to Marjorie: she had looked so
overpoweringly pretty that she had produced in the bosom of her
admirer a severe case of stage fright. That was "all the matter
with him"; but it was the beginning of his troubles, and he did
not recover until he and Sam reached the "gentlemen's
dressing-room", whither they were directed by a polite coloured
man.
Here they found a cloud of acquaintances getting into pumps and
gloves, and, in a few extreme cases, readjusting hair before a
mirror. Some even went so far--after removing their shoes and
putting on their pumps--as to wash traces of blacking from their
hands in the adjacent bathroom before assuming their gloves.
Penrod, being in a strange mood, was one of these, sharing the
basin with little Maurice Levy.
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