"Now for a cigarette," said the man.
"Lucky man," said the girl. "I'm dying for a puff!"
"Have one," he said. "I'll take it from you, if any one comes."
There was a silence, and the striking of a match. Then a long-drawn feminine "Ah-h!" which was undoubtedly Linda's. Jack stood up to speak to her over the dividing palms. It was not a thing to do, but Jack was a man of one idea at a time; he had to speak to her, and his other dance was at the tail of the evening. He wished merely to make an appointment to speak with her later.
As his head rose over the palms he was just in time to see the blond head of the English boy and Linda's darker, bejewelled head draw close together, and their lips meet and linger. They did not see him.
Jack dropped back as if he had been shot, blushing and furious with himself. To be a peeping Tom! a thing he loathed. He silently cut across the room within the balconies, praying that they might not hear him. Wild horses would never have dragged any admission from him of what he had seen.
But when he got his breath again, as one might say, oh! but he found his heart was beating blithely! He felt as if he had burst out of a hateful chrysalis. Life was full of joy after all! A little song rang in his ear: "It's all right! It's all right!" Laughter trembled in his throat.
He waited about on the stairs for Linda to come down. She finally appeared, cool and scornful, her heels tapping on the stairs, the thing in her hair nodding and sparkling. Who would ever guess that her little Mightiness had just been kissed! The spring of laughter bubbled up inside Jack. He presented a bland face to her, but he could not hide the shine in his eyes, nor the smirk about the corners of his lip.
"What is it?" asked Linda, staring at the change in him.
"Whom have you the next dance with?"