n out into the dining-room. Tiny
and Lena, Antonia and Mary Dusak, were waltzing in the middle of the
floor. They separated and fled toward the kitchen, giggling.

Kirkpatrick caught Tiny by the elbows. "What's the matter with you girls?
Dancing out here by yourselves, when there's a roomful of lonesome men on
the other side of the partition! Introduce me to your friends, Tiny."

The girls, still laughing, were trying to escape. Tiny looked alarmed.
"Mrs. Gardener would n't like it," she protested. "She'd be awful mad if
you was to come out here and dance with us."

"Mrs. Gardener's in Omaha, girl. Now, you're Lena, are you?--and you're
Tony and you're Mary. Have I got you all straight?"

O'Reilly and the others began to pile the chairs on the tables. Johnnie
Gardener ran in from the office.

"Easy, boys, easy!" he entreated them. "You'll wake the cook, and there'll
be the devil to pay for me. She won't hear the music, but she'll be down
the minute anything's moved in the dining-room."

"Oh, what do you care, Johnnie? Fire the cook and wire Molly to bring
another. Come along, nobody'll tell tales."

Johnnie shook his head. "'S a fact, boys," he said confidentially. "If I
take a drink in Black Hawk, Molly knows it in Omaha!"

His guests laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. "Oh, we'll make it all
right with Molly. Get your back up, Johnnie."

Molly was Mrs. Gardener's name, of course. "Molly Bawn" was painted in
large blue letters on the glossy white side of the hotel bus, and "Molly"
was engraved inside Johnnie's ring and on his watch-case--doubtless on his
heart, too. He was an affectionate little man, and he thought his wife a
wonderful woman; he knew that without her he would hardly be more than a
clerk in some other man's hotel.

At a word from Kirkpatrick, d'Arnault spread himself out over the piano,
and began to draw the dance music out of it, while the perspiration shone
on his short wool and on his uplifted face. He looked like some glistening
African god of pleasure, full of strong, savage blood. Whenever the
dancers paused to change partners or to catch breath, he would boom out
softly, "Who's that goin' back on me? One of these city gentlemen, I bet!
Now, you girls, you ain't goin' to let that floor get cold?"

Antonia seemed frightened at first, and kept looking questioningly at Lena
and Tiny over Willy O'Reilly's shoulder. Tiny Soderball was trim and
slender, with lively little feet and pretty