lus athleticism.

Davidge kept twisting his head about to see how Mamise comported
herself. He was being swiftly wrung to that desperate condition in
which men are made ready to commit monogamy. He felt that he could not
endure to have Mamise free any longer.

He presented himself to her for the next dance.

She laughed. "I'm booked."

He blanched at the treacherous heartlessness and sat the dance
out--stood it out, rather, among the superfluous men on the
side-lines. A morose and ridiculous gloom possessed him at seeing
still a fourth stranger with his arms about Mamise, her breast to his
and her procedure obedient to his. Worse yet, when a fifth insolent
stranger cut in on the twin stars, Mamise abandoned her fourth
temporary husband for another with a levity that amounted to
outrageous polyandry.

Davidge felt no impulse to cut in. He disliked dancing so intensely
that he wanted to put an end to the abomination, reform it altogether.
He did not want to dance between those white arms so easily forsworn.
He wanted to rescue Mamise from this place of horror and hale her away
to a cave with no outlook on mankind.

It was she who sought him where he glowered. Perhaps she understood
him. If she did, she was wise enough to enjoy the proof of her sway
over him and still sane enough to take a joy in her triumph.

She introduced her partner--Davidge would almost have called the
brute a paramour. He did not get the man's name and was glad of
it--especially as the hunter deserted her and went after his next
Sabine.

"You've lost your faithful stenographer," was the first phrase of
Mamise's that Davidge understood.

"Why so?" he grumbled.

"Because this is the life for me. I've been a heroine and a war-worker
about as long as I can. I'm for the fleshpots and the cold-cream jars
and the light fantastic. Aren't you going to dance with me any more?"

"Just as you please," Davidge said, with a singularly boyish
sulkiness, and wondered why Mamise laughed so mercilessly:

"Of course I please."

The music struck up an abandoned jig, but he danced with great dignity
till his feet ran away with him. Then he made off with her again in
one of his frenzies, and a laughter filled his whole being.

She heard him growl something.

"What did you say?" she said.

"I said, 'Damn you!'"

She laughed so heartily at this that she had to stop dancing for a
moment. She astonished him by a brazen question:

"Do you really love m