They all but asked him outright to dance with them, and little of their open pursuit of him escaped her eyes.

She resolved that she would not be guilty of throwing herself at him, and withheld dance after dance, and yet was secretly and thrillingly aware that she was pursuing the right tactics.

She deliberately demonstrated that she was desirable to other men, as he involuntarily demonstrated his own desirableness to the women.
Her happiness came when he coolly overrode her objections and insisted on two dances more than she had allotted him.

And she was pleased, as well as angered, when she chanced to overhear two of the strapping young cannery girls.

"The way that little sawed-off is monopolizin' him," said one.