Lane took a long, steady glance at Swann, but did not reply.
"Daren, everybody has been dancing jazz. It's the rage. The old dances were slow. The new ones have pep and snap."
"So I see. They have more than that," returned Lane. "But pray, never mind me. I'm out of date. Go ahead and dance.... If you'd rather, I'll leave and call on you some other time."
"No, you stay," she replied. "I'll chase this bunch pretty soon."
"Well, you won't chase me. I'll go," spoke up Swann, sullenly, with a fling of his cigarette.
"You needn't hurt yourself," returned Helen, sarcastically.
"So long, people," said Swann to the others. But it was perfectly obvious that he did not include Lane. It was also obvious, at least to Lane, that Swann showed something of intolerance and mastery in the dark, sullen glance he bestowed upon Helen. She followed him across the room and out into the hall, from whence her guarded voice sounded unintelligibly. But Lane's keen ear, despite the starting of the Victrola, caught Swann's equally low, yet clearer reply. "You can't kid me. I'm on. You'll vamp Lane if he lets you. Go to it!"
As Helen came back into the room Mackay ran for her, and locking her in the same embrace—even a tighter one than Swann's—he fell into the strange steps that had so shocked Lane. Moreover, he was manifestly a skilful dancer, and showed the thin, lithe, supple body of one trained down by this or some other violent exercise.
Lane did not watch the dancers this time. Again Bessy Bell refused to get up from the lounge. The youth was insistent. He pawed at her. And manifestly she did not like that, for her face flamed, and she snapped: "Stop it—you bonehead! Can't you see I want to sit here by Mr. Lane?"
The youth slouched away fuming to himself.