as a toddle. Lane remembered
the one-step, the fox-trot and other new dances of an earlier day,
when the craze for new dancing had become general, but this sort of
gyration was vastly something else. It disgusted Lane. He felt the
blood surge to his face. He watched Helen Wrapp in the arms of Swann,
and he realized, whatever had been the state of his heart on his
return home, he did not love her now. Even if the war had not
disrupted his mind in an unaccountable way, even if he had loved Helen
Wrapp right up to that moment, such singular abandonment to a
distorted strange music, to the close and unmistakably sensual embrace
of a man--that spectacle would have killed his love.

Lane turned his gaze away. The young fellow Vancey was pulling at
Bessy Bell, and she shook his hand off. "No, Roy, I don't want to
dance." Lane heard above the jarring, stringing notes. Mackay was
smoking, and looked on as if bored. In a moment more the Victrola
rasped out its last note.

Helen's face was flushed and moist. Her bosom heaved. Her gown hung
closely to her lissom and rather full form. A singular expression of
excitement, of titillation, almost wild, a softer expression almost
dreamy, died out of her face. Lane saw Swann lead Helen up to a small
table beside the Victrola. Here stood a large pitcher of lemonade, and
a number of glasses. Swann filled a glass half full, from the pitcher,
and then, deliberately pulling a silver flask from his hip pocket he
poured some of its dark red contents into the glass. Helen took it
from him, and turned to Lane with a half-mocking glance.

"Daren, I remember you never drank," she said. "Maybe the war made a
man of you!... Will you have a sip of lemonade with a shot in it?"

"No, thank you," replied Lane.

"Didn't you drink over there?" she queried.

"Only when I had to," he rejoined, shortly.

All of the four dancers partook of a drink of lemonade, strengthened
by something from Swann's flask. Lane was quick to observe that when
it was pressed upon Bessy Bell she refused to take it: "I hate booze,"
she said, with a grimace. His further impression of Bessy Bell, then,
was that she had just fallen in with this older crowd, and
sophisticated though she was, had not yet been corrupted. The
divination of this heightened his interest.

"Well, Daren, you old prune, what'd you think of the toddle?" asked
Helen, as she took a cigarette offered by Swann and tipped it between
her red lips.

"Is th