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Cooke, Grace MacGowan, 1863-1944

"The Power and the Glory"


"I think Miss Johnnie promised me a dance this evening. I'll have to go
back to the office in twenty minutes, and--I hate to interrupt you, but
I guess I'll have to claim my own."
He became suddenly aware that Conroy was signalling him across Johnnie's
unconscious head with Masonic twistings of the features. Stoddard met
these recklessly inconsiderate grimacings with an impassive stare, then
looked away.
"I want to see you before you go," the man from Watauga remarked, as he
reluctantly resigned his partner. "Don't you forget that there's a waltz
coming to me, Miss Johnnie. I'm going to have it, if we make the band
play special for us alone."
Lydia Sessions, passing on the arm of young Baker, glanced at Johnnie,
star-eyed, pink-cheeked and smiling, with a pair of tall cavaliers
contending for her favours, and sucked her lips in to that thin, sharp
line of reprobation Johnnie knew so well. Dismissing her escort
graciously, she hurried to the little supper room and found another
member of the committee.
"Come here, Mrs. Hexter. Just look at that, will you?" She called
attention in a carefully suppressed, but fairly tragic tone, to Stoddard
and Johnnie dancing together, the only couple on the floor. "None of the
girls know how to waltz. I am not sure that it would be suitable if they
did. When I came past, just now, there were two of the men--two--talking
to John Consadine, and they were all three laughing.


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