Shall we go back to the ball-room now?
I am engaged to Dick for the next dance.

I mustn't cut him in his own house." It was an annual affair but quite informal--this Boxing Night dance at the Guyes'.

Dick himself called it a survival of his schoolboy days, and it was always referred to in the neighbourhood as "Dick's Christmas party." He and his mother would no more have dreamed of discontinuing the festivity than of foregoing their Christmas dinner, and the Roses of Wardenhurst were invariably invited and as invariably attended it.

Piers was not so constant a guest.

Dick had thrown him an open invitation on the hunting-field a day or two before, and Piers, having nothing better to do, had decided to present himself.
He liked dancing, and was easily the best dancer among the men.