He gripped the savory body of Mamise close to him and found her to his whim, foreseeing it with a mysterious prescience. Holding her thus intimately in the brief wedlock of the dance, he began to love her in a way that he could think of only one word for––terrible.
She seemed to grow afraid, too, of the spell that was befogging them, and sought rescue in a flippancy. There was also a flattering spice of jealousy in what she murmured:
“You haven’t spent all your afternoons and evenings building ships, young man!”
“No?”
“What cabarets have you graduated from?”
He quoted her own words, “Don’t you wish you knew?”
“No.”
“One thing is certain. I’ve never found in any of ’em as light a feather as you.”
“Are you referring to my head or my feet?”
“Your blessed feet!”