"You have it over her like a tent, Claire," he insisted; "you're lovely
and human both."

"Thank you, darling; I'm human, fast enough, now that the drink is
dying. I believe for the first time in my life I am ready to leave a
dance before the last flourish of the music. Fanny, we are getting
older; it's hideous but so. We're getting on, but our young men are
gayer every day."

Fanny Randon's smile, her expression, were secure.

This made Lee restive, and, patting her hand, he left to dance with
Alice Lucian. "When this is over," she informed him, "we'll get Anette
and George, and go out to my car. There is a Thermos bottle of
cocktails hidden under the seat." The girl who had sat at Lee's right
was dancing with a tall fair-haired boy in a corner. Entirely oblivious
of the rest of the room, they were advancing two matched steps and then
retreating, their eyes tightly shut and cheeks together. A man fell in
the middle of the floor, catching his partner's skirt and tearing it
from the waistband. Everywhere the mad effort at escape!

Lee Randon lost his impression of the triviality of the occasion: they
all seemed desperately searching for that something he had lost and
which was overwhelmingly important to him; and all the while the music
stuttered and mocked and confused a tragic need. Or it was like a
momentary release from deadly confinement, a respite that, by its rare
intoxication, drove the participants into forms of incredulous cramped
abandon. Positively, he thought, they were grasping at light, at color,
at the commonplace sounds of a few instruments, as though they were