ner on the shoulder. The brother
released her with a grimace at Hugh, and Hester, without a word, put her
right hand in Hugh's left and slipped her left arm around his neck. They
danced in silence for a time, bodies pressed close together, swaying in
place, hardly advancing. Presently, however, Hester drew her head back
and spoke.

"Hot stuff, isn't it?" she asked lazily.

Hugh was startled. Her breath was redolent of whisky.

"Sure is," he replied and executed a difficult step, the girl following
him without the slightest difficulty. She danced remarkably, but he was
glad when he was tapped on the shoulder and another brother claimed
Hester. The whisky breath had repelled him.

As the evening wore on he danced with a good many girls who had whisky
breaths. One girl clung to him as they danced and whispered, "Hold me
up, kid; I'm ginned." He had to rush a third, a dainty blond child, to
the porch railing. She wasn't a pretty sight as she vomited into the
garden; nor did Hugh find her gasped comment, "The seas are rough
to-night," amusing. Another girl went sound asleep in a chair and had to
be carried up-stairs and put to bed.

A number of the brothers were hilarious; a few had drunk too much and
were sick; one had a "crying jag." There were men there, however, who
were not drinking at all, and they were making gallant efforts to keep
the sober girls away from the less sober girls and the inebriated
brothers.

Hugh was not drinking. The idea of drinking at a dance was offensive to
him; he thought it insulting to the girls. The fact that some of the
girls were drinking horrified him. He didn't mind their smoking--well,
not very much; but drinking? That was going altogether too far.

About midnight he danced again with Hester Sheville, not because he
wanted to but because she had insisted. He had been standing gloomily in
the doorway watching the bacchanalian scene, listening to the tom-tom
of the drums when she came up to him.

"I wanta dance," she said huskily. "I wanta dance with you--you--you
blond beast." Seeing no way to decline to dance with the half-drunk
girl, he put his arm around her and started off. Hester's tongue was no
longer in control, but her feet followed his unerringly. When the music
stopped, she whispered, "Take me--ta-take me to th' th' dining-room."
Wonderingly, Hugh led her across the hall. He had not been in the
dining-room since the dance started, and he was amazed and shocked to
find