"Oh, no, no, you are—you are—" But he could not say anything without saying too much. She saved the day by a change of subject.
"And I stared right at you, and didn't know you?"
"Why should you? It was stupid of me to expect you to remember me. But I did, and—when you didn't, I was crushed."
"Of course you were," she crooned. "I always want to murder anybody who forgets me."
"Surely that can't happen often? How could any one forget You?"
It was perfectly sincere, yet it sounded like the bumptious praise of a yokel. She raised her eyelids and reproved him.
"That's pretty rough work for a West-Pointer. Rub it out and do it over again."
Again he lost the rhythm, and suffered agonies of confusion in recovering it. But the tango music put him on his feet again. How could he be humble to that uppish, vainglorious tune, that toreador pomposity?
Persis herself was like a pouter pigeon strutting and preening her high breast. All the dancers on the floor were proclaiming their grandeur, playing the peacock.
Forbes grew consequential, too, as he and Persis marched haughtily forward shoulder to shoulder, and outer hands clasped, then paused for a kick, whirled on their heels, and retraced their steps with the high knee-action of thoroughbreds winning a blue ribbon.