“Oh no! I’m very happy looking on.”
“Kühler’s worth watching, isn’t he?”
This was said with such insolent meaning that Morrison wilted like a sensitive plant. She managed to gasp out “Yes,” and went on asking wild, pointless questions, with her thoughts whirling far removed from her words.
Why were all these people so impertinent, with their trick of plunging into intimate life without waiting for intimacy? She felt that in a moment Logan would be telling her all about himself and Oliver by way of luring her on to discuss Mendel. That she had no intention of doing, with him or with any one else.
“She’s just a shy little fool,” thought Logan, “and hopelessly, hopelessly young.”
“I’m unhappy!” thought Morrison, and it seemed to her foolish and mean to be so. Her loyalty resented her weakness. She owed it to Mendel to enjoy herself and to share as far as she could his friends. But there was in the atmosphere of that gathering something that repelled her and roused the fighting quality in her, something indecent, something that hurt her as the picture of the flayed man in the anatomy book hurt her.
Mendel was playing a wild rag-time tune.
“I think I’d like to dance to this tune. You must dance with me. I don’t think you ought to be out of your own party,” she said to Logan, who caught her up in a great bear’s hug, trod on her toes, knocked her knees, pressed his fingers so tight into her back that she could hardly bear it, and at last, as the music ceased, deposited her by Mendel’s side.
“It is a marvellous thing, this machine,” he said. “I should like to go on at it all night. Have you been dancing? You look hot. You said you weren’t going to dance.”
“I made Logan dance. He nearly killed me!”