CHAPTER TWELVE: CHUCK GUESSES RIGHT

Janet and Phyllis looked at each other and smiled. Janet's companions were as astonished as Chuck. They looked at first one and then the other of the girls, and then Howard whistled.

"Golly," he exclaimed. It was not a word that fitted his costume but it exactly suited his confused frame of mind.

"I am seeing double or else I'm going crazy and I don't like the feeling," he protested. "Somebody pinch me."

Both John and Chuck took him at his word and complied heartily with his request. The result was a loud but quickly suppressed "ouch" and a backward lunge that almost upset the table with its precious burden of lemonade.

Chuck took Phyllis by the arm and almost shook her.

"Then you weren't you; I mean her," he said none too clearly, "but you let me think you were."

"You mean I let you think I was I. Well, I couldn't very well help it." Phyllis's tone was apologetic, but her eyes danced.

Chuck looked appealingly at Janet.

"You know what I mean," he said.

"Of course, it's perfectly plain," Janet replied consolingly. "You thought she was me while all the time she was she and me was me," -- the hodge-podge of pronouns and their ungrammatical use was too much for poor chuck. He buried his head in his hands, the picture of despair.

Phyllis took the opportunity of exchanging a nod and a sly wink with Janet that she apparently understood, for without a second's hesitation she slipped out of her place and Phyllis took it.

"Well, anyhow you can dance," -- Chuck lifted his head and looked at Janet. Howard and John promptly doubled over in a fit of laughter.

"Oh, but I'm so sorry I can't," Janet said demurely.

Chuck looked at Phyllis. "Then neither of you dance, I see," he said slowly.

"Why, I never said I couldn't," Phyllis protested, and Howard, who was trying to recover his first fit of laughter by drinking a cup of punch, choked and had to be severely thumped on the back by John.

Chuck looked angry and puzzled for a minute and then he acknowledged his defeat and laughed good-naturedly.

"One of you dances," he said with conviction. "Will she please do me the honor of dancing this one step with me?" He looked at them both, not at all sure which one would reply.

"I'd love to," Phyllis said, laughing.

He took her in his arms and away they whirled. Chuck, unlike most boys his age, liked to dance, and Phyllis was as light as the fairy she claimed to be, so for a few minutes they did not speak, for they were contented to glide over the waxed floor to the inspiring music.

"I should say you could dance," Chuck said at last. "If your voice was not entirely different I would say that you are Daphne Hillis."

"Would you?" -- Phyllis did her best to imitate Daphne's drawl, and she succeeded so well that Chuck came to a full stop in the very middle of the floor and stared at her.

"Are you Daphne?" he demanded.

Phyllis gave a little laugh and lowered her eyes, but she neither admitted nor denied.

Chuck started to dance again without saying another word, and presently Phyllis stole a quick glance up at him. She found him staring at her with a new look in his eyes.

"You are not Daphne," he said with relief. "Taffy has green eyes and yours are brown, red brown like autumn leaves." Phyllis gave a little start, for his words were so like little Don's.

"I'm glad you are not Taffy," Chuck went on. "I might have known you weren't."

"Why?" Phyllis could not help asking.

"Oh, because Taffy and I are on the outs, and she wouldn't dance with me for anything," he replied indifferently.

"She might," was all Phyllis would say, her brain already busy with a plan.

"Too bad your twin doesn't dance," was Chuck's next remark, and for a minute Phyllis lost step and almost stumbled. He had used the word without thinking, never realizing how near the truth he was.

"But do look," he exclaimed a second later, "she does; there she goes with Jerry Dodd, and she dances beautifully too. Whatever made her say she couldn't?"

Phyllis w3as speechless with mirth, but she managed to nod to Daphne as she sailed by, still with Jerry.

The dance ended; it was the fifth of the evening, and the four girls had all promised to leave their partners and return to the dressing-room to compare notes when it was over.

Phyllis found the others all waiting there for her, for it had been difficult to find an excuse to satisfy Chuck. He made her promise to meet him at the bench for the seventh dance before he would leave her to keep his next dance with Muriel.

"Oh, oh, oh, was there ever such a lark!: Sally exclaimed. "I have danced with five different boys and not one of them guessed who I was, and yet I know all of them and have danced with them scores of times."

"Have you been dancing with Jerry all evening?" Phyllis asked Daphne, as Janet regaled Sally with a description of the scene by the punch bowl.

"What else can I do?" Daphne groaned. "He says he won't let me go until he finds out who I am, and I simply won't tell him. I saw you dancing with Chuck. How do you like him?"

"Oh, ever so much," Phyllis replied, and then she laughed harder than ever.

Daphne demanded an explanation, and when Phyllis gave it, together with her plan, she heartily agreed.

"Then it's settled that we all meet at the bench just as the lights go out before the gong rings to unmask," Sally said, as they started back downstairs. The rest nodded, and at the door of the ballroom they separated, each to her waiting partner, rather to a waiting partner.
Sally joined Howard and John in the library, to continue Janet's dancing lessons, and Janet hurried to the punch bowl to find a jolly King Cole who had Sally's promise to sit out the dance with him and let him guess who she was.

Chuck, after leaving Muriel rather unceremoniously, rushed to the bench beneath the palms, and Daphne greeted him with a smile of welcome. Phyllis was claimed at once on her appearance by the persistent Jerry, and they danced off, as Jerry firmly believed, taking up the threads of their conversation exactly where he and Daphne had left off.

The room was so large that it was surprisingly easy to keep out of one another's way, and not one of the four boys realized that there were more than two girls wearing the same kind of costume.

The dance ended, and the girls lost themselves in the crowd, to appear in person for their next dance, the boys none the wiser. Only John, with his donkey's head very much awry, noticed a change as he watched Howard Garth painstakingly teaching Sally the rest of the steps to the fox trot. Janet had not thought of telling Sally that she was being very nice to John; she hardly realized it herself; so Sally ignored him as girls always ignored John, and he noticed it. It took Janet several minutes to make him forget his grievance when she came back at the ninth dance to have one more lesson.
The tenth dance had hardly begun before the music slowed noticeably, and the lights gradually grew dim, the room blurred, and the couples came to a standstill as darkness descended over them. Four figures hurried their protesting partners towards the bench under the palm. They were all there by the time the gong sounded.

Suddenly the lights blazed on again, and four very surprised boys stared in bewilderment at the four girls before them.

"Oh, now I know I'm crazy!" Howard exclaimed. "So don't bother to pinch me," he added, as Chuck and John lifted their arms.

Jerry Dodd looked reproachfully at Daphne and wagged his head.

"It was you all the time," he said, "but how could a feller be expected to know when you talked the fool way you did."

"But, Jerry, are you sure you were dancing all of the time with me?" Daphne's drawl sounded pleasantly on all ears.

"That I am," Jerry replied, with so much certainty that Phyllis and Daphne shrieked with laughter.

Grant Weeks, in spite of the dignity that his King Cole suit gave him, looked very limp as he sat down on the bench. All he seemed to be able to say was,

"Sally Ladd -- you -- you --" The rest was lost in groans.

Up until now Chuck had not spoken. He had stood looking at all the girls in turn, and particularly at Phyllis and Janet.

"What I want to know is, when did I dance with which?" he demanded so seriously that the rest laughed with delight.

"And who takes who to supper?" inquired Grant. "Sally, I may not have danced with you nor sat out in the conservatory and argued with you, but I am going to take you in to supper, so come along."

"II don't know whether I ought to go with a boy that doesn't know whether he knows me or not," Sally laughed, "but I will just this once."

Howard turned to Janet.

"Did I or didn't I teach you to dance?" he demanded.

"You did, " -- Janet laughed. "That is, part of the time. Come on, John, we'll all go down together. I'm awfully hungry."

"I knew it," John said to himself, and he smiled even through his donkey's mask.

Phyllis and Daphne were left and Chuck and Jerry looked at them uneasily.

"What are we going to do about it?" Jerry demanded.

"Suit yourself," -- Chuck laughed. "I am going to take -- " and here he paused, for he suddenly remembered that he had never been introduced to Phyllis and did not even know her name.

"Daphne, introduce us," he begged.

"But we've met already," Phyllis protested. "Have you forgotten?"

"Oh, I don't mean that silly Queen Mab introduction," Chuck said.

"Neither do I," Phyllis confused him still further by replying.

Jerry took Daphne's arm and hurried her off.

"Let's let them settle it themselves," he said over his shoulder.

Chuck looked at Phyllis and smiled.

"Please," he said coaxingly. But Phyllis shook her head.

"Not unless you promise to believe in Don's brownies," she answered, and as she spoke she pulled off her hood.

Chuck looked at her and gasped.

"Of course," he exclaimed, "you're the girl that brought Don home, and I saw you one day when I was with Muriel and she told me you were one of the Page twins and -- " he stopped, and Phyllis guessed that the rest of Muriel's remarks had not been any too sweet.

"Well, take a good look at me," she teased, for once I leave you, you will never be able to tell me from Janet.

"Oh, won't I?" Chuck replied. "I bet I will, and I'll prove it after supper.
His chance came a little later. Both girls stood before him, their hoods thrown back and their eyes laughing up at him.

"It's easy," Chuck laughed, holding out his hand to Phyllis, "you are Don's girl," he said.

"Oh, Don told you the secret," Sally protested.

"He did not," Chuck denied.

"Close your eyes then and turn around, " Janet directed. She and Phyllis changed places, and when Sally called "ready," Chuck turned to find them still before him but with their eyes tight shut.

"Easy again," he said, and took Phyllis by the hand.

The little group looked at each other in astonishment, for they had all been baffled, and Daphne said,

"Tell us how you did it?"

"No, that's my secret," Chuck replied firmly; "mine and Don's, and I'll never tell."

And he kept his word, for not until many years later did the Page twins learn the difference that he saw between them every time he looked at them.

Continue to chapter 13