Lucy chose her thoughts as she would have selected neckties, choosing the pretty ones, tossing the ugly ones aside and never thinking of them again, or, for that matter, of the bill for the pretty neckties that would be sent to her husband. Only very great matters, such as love and death, could have occupied her mind against her will.
Toward one o'clock the dance became hilarious. One or two men had the good sense to go home, two or three others had not. One of them—the King boy—made quite a nuisance of himself, and to revenge himself for a snub (greatly exaggerated by the alcoholic mind), sought and found the hotel switchboard and in the midst of a fox trot shut off all the lights.
But the music went right on, and so did many of the dancers. There were violent collisions, shouts of laughter, and exclamations of pain.
I was facing the nearest wall of the room when the lights went out and I backed Lucy toward it, and then, groping, for I hadn't a match in my clothes, found it and stood guard over her, one hand pressing the wall on each side of her and my back braced. I received one thundering jolt over the kidneys, and one cruel kick on the ankle bone. And then the lights went on again, and we finished our dance.
Lucy said she hated people who weren't cool and collected in time of danger. That if she was ever in a theater when it caught fire she hoped there'd be somebody with her, like me, to take care of her! "That was the neatest thing," she said, "the way you got us out of that. We might have been knocked down and trampled to death."
When that dance ended, we went out of doors for a few minutes to get cool. We took a turn the length of the narrow, sanded yard and back. We could hear the buggy boys just beyond the tall privet hedge. Some were cracking jokes; others were heavily snoring, and there were whispered conversations that had to do, no doubt, with mischief, and petty crimes.
"It's been a grand party," I said. "By and by I'm going to give one."
"But not for me, you know, just a spontaneous party. Oh, do please, will you?"
"Of course I will. But it will really be given——"
"I mustn't know."