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similarity between the two men apart from their good looks, of course, and the entire family seemed to share those. Fran cast her a look of triumph that things had been as she predicted.
    Jamie smiled as if his chastened mood had been forgotten. “Will you dance with me?” he asked, and Katie shook her head.
    “Not this time,” she said firmly. “It’s time you changed partners.”
    “Oh.” He turned to his cousin. “Fran?” he smiled at her, his arms open invitingly, and she moved into them, looking at Katie over his shoulder.
    “See you in a moment, Katie,” she said, and danced off, her fair head inches below her cousin’s chin, so that he smiled at Katie as they moved away.
    The baby-faced young man was quick to take advantage of Katie being alone and was at her side in a second as the others moved off. He held Katie with equal enthusiasm as he had Fran and performed his own version of a quickstep which she endeavoured, sometimes vainly, to follow. Whirling into a particularly complicated set of steps on a comer, he swung her round with such force that she barely missed colliding with Eleanor Barlow, gliding elegantly in the arms of John Miller. For the brief second that she looked into his eyes before she was snatched away by her energetic partner Katie could have sworn that she caught a glimmer of amusement there.
    “You’re a very good dancer,” her partner told her earnestly. “I’m not always easy to follow, I know, but you seem to manage to follow me very well.” He smiled at her, his eyes almost level with hers, before clasping her back again in the bear hug he affected. He seemed disappointed when the music stopped and would have escorted her to the bar, but Katie excused herself, having seen Fran signalling to her from the other side of the room.
    “Jamie’s getting us a drink, and circulating a bit,” she said, her fair head turned slightly to keep her cousin in sight. “He isn’t very sociable when he’s in a mood like he is tonight and Janus is getting cross because he isn’t dancing with some of the other girls, so I’ve asked him to get drinks, then circulate for a while. Katie,” she looked at her friend from the corner of her eyes, “will you do something for me?”
    “Of course,” she was puzzled by the air of conspiracy about the other girl. “What is it you want me to do?”
    “The next dance,” Fran said, “is a ladies’ request, and I want you to ask John to dance with you before Eleanor Barlow can ask him.”
    Katie flushed, gazing at her friend unbelievingly. “Fran, I couldn’t!” she protested, appalled at the thought of approaching John Miller, let alone asking him to dance with her, and the idea of pitting her chances against the tall, elegant model with the malicious eyes filled her with horror. “I wouldn’t dare,” she said, glancing across the room to where the two in question sat side by side smoking and talking together.
    “Stuff!” said Fran inelegantly. “Of course you can, he won’t eat you.”
    “But why?” Katie asked plaintively.
    Fran narrowed her blue eyes. “Because I don’t like the way she’s monopolising him,” she said. “It’s time he danced with somebody else.”
    “He’s already danced with me once,” Katie reminded her, “and I don’t think it was exactly a thrilling experience for either of us.”
    “Oh, he was warning you about Jamie, I suppose,” Fran shrugged, dismissing it as nothing, but the accuracy of the guess discomfited Katie.
    “It wasn’t a very pleasant few moments,” she said, “and I don’t particularly want to repeat it.”
    “Oh, he won’t be horrid to you again,” Fran took it upon herself to promise, “and I don’t like Eleanor Barlow. I don’t like her fastening on to John like she is.” The blue eyes rounded in appeal. “Please, Katie, do it for me, and I promise you I’ll relieve you when you’ve been round twice.”
    “But why can’t you ask him?” Katie protested.