that moment they filled, obsessed her
vision.

"There's not much style about them," muttered Traill. He was leaning
far out now, his elbows on the window-sill, his hands supporting his
face--the attitude of concentrated interest. "You'll see, they'll
go on dancing round each other like this for the whole of the first
round. Just what I said--Japanese dancing mice."

So they sidled, ridiculous to see, had it not been in such vivid
earnest. Now one feinted a blow, then the next. At each lurching
attempt Sally caught the breath in her throat. It freed itself
automatically with the lack of tension.

At last in a moment of over-balance--a blow from one of them that
struck air and pitched the striker forward--they rushed together,
each grunting like swine as the breath was driven out of them. Sally
clutched the curtain at her side. Her fingers tore at the fabric.

"Break away, break away!" called the master; and when neither of them
loosed his hold for fear the other would strike, he took him whom
they called Jim by the shoulder and pushed him bodily backwards. The
other followed him with a blow like the arm of a windmill in a gale.
Traill chuckled with delight between his hands.

"Time!" called the master, and Jim, striking a futile blow that
glanced harmlessly off the shoulder of his opponent, at which the
little ring sent up its titter of laughter, they returned to their
attendants.

Traill looked round. "What I said, you see," he remarked; "not one
blow went home in the first round. Yet they're fanning them with
towels--ridiculous, isn't it?" In the excitement of his interest,
he spoke to her as though she were as well acquainted with the manners
of the ring as he.

Once more they were called into the open. Once more they slouched
forward with the advice that their backers had poured into their ears
still gyrating in a wild confusion in their minds. That one minute
had seemed interminable to Sally; yet she realized how small a speck
of time it must have appeared to them.

"Do you think they'll hit each other this time?" she whispered.

"Well, let's hope so," said Traill. "It's pretty dull as it is.
There isn't much sport in this sort of thing if you can't hit straight.
Oh, one of them'll land a blow presently. They want warming, that's
all."

His words sounded far away but absolutely distinct. She scarcely
recognized in them the man whom she had been talking to but half an
hour before. His whole expression o