"But he didn't haunt the door," gurgled Joan. "He got roped in. He fell an easy victim to the snag parade—and women fainted and men wept when the man of great possessions and the pointed woman took the floor. . . ."
"Pointed?" murmured Vane.
"All jolts and bumps," explained the girl. "Her knees were like steel castings. I think that if the—if the girl in grey gauzy stuff had realised that the man of wealth had stopped behind for her, she might, out of pity, have given him one dance. But instead all she did was to shake with laughter as she saw him quivering in a corner held fast in the clutch of the human steam engine. She heard the blows he was receiving; they sounded like a hammer hitting wood; and then later she saw him limping painfully from the room—probably in search of some Elliman's embrocation. But, as I say, she didn't realise it. . . . She only thought him a silly old man. . . ."
"Old," said Vane slowly. . . . "How old?"
"About fifty," said the girl vaguely. Then she looked at Vane. "She found out later that he was forty-eight, to be exact."
"Not so very old after all," remarked Vane, pitching a used match into the water, and stuffing down the tobacco in his pipe with unusual care.
"It was towards the end of the dance," she resumed, "that the man of great wealth was introduced to the girl in grey, by the donor of the feast. The band had gathered in all the coal-scuttles and pots it could, and was hitting them hard with pokers when the historical meeting took place. You see it was a Jazz band and they always economise by borrowing their instruments in the houses they go to. . . ."
"And did she dance with him?" asked Vane.
"I don't think he even asked her to," said Joan. "But even as she went off with a boy in the Flying Corps she realised that she was face to face with a problem."
"Quick work," murmured Vane.