Pike--a small, frightened-looking woman with a prominent ruby necklace--answered her absently, and hurried away to see that the imported waiters did not steal anything.
Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and benevolent interest.In Canaan no parents, no guardians nor aunts, were haled forth o' nights to duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs.Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do.It was not an easy matter.
When the first dance reached an end, Mamie Pike came to her for a moment with a cheery welcome, and was immediately surrounded by a circle of young men and women, flushed with dancing, shouting as was their wont, laughing inexplicably over words and phrases and unintelligible mono-syllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society and these cries were symbols of things exquisitely humorous, which only they understood.Ariel laughed with them more heartily than any other, so that she might seem to be of them and as merry as they were, but almost immediately she found herself outside of the circle, and presently they all whirled away into another dance, and she was left alone again.
So she sat, no one coming near her, through several dances, trying to maintain the smile of delighted interest upon her face, though she felt the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their fixedness, her eyes growing hot and glazed.All the other girls were provided with partners for every dance, with several young men left over, these latter lounging hilariously together in the doorways.