She wanted him for the dancing.

"I sure got my luck with me, but I'd sooner dance.

I ain't hankerin' to take the money away from you-all." Nobody urged.

They took his refusal as final, and the Virgin was pressing his arm to turn him away in pursuit of the supper-seekers, when he experienced a change of heart.

It was not that he did not want to dance, nor that he wanted to hurt her; but that insistent pressure on his arm put his free man-nature in revolt.