He asked her to dance, and Peñaverde darted a swift, Spanish glance in his direction. Go on back to Spain! Grover muttered to himself and caught Olga looking toward Hellgren, who seemed always to be mechanically conscious of her and as mechanically dependent on her as he was dependent on his garments. He half nodded to her as though authorizing her to amuse herself, and went on talking in a sluggish stream of Swedish French which was punctuated by the muffled, pushing sounds of Mamie's intense and eloquent nose.
Olga's smile, as she rose to join Grover, took the edge off the distasteful sign of submission to Hellgren's good pleasure.
The tune was of a bygone vintage,—he had danced with Rhoda to the self-same rhythms,—but exhilarating. After a few tentative measures Olga adapted her steps to his. The contact of her slim, strong body, and the fact of yielding, in unison with her, to the dictates of the music, precipitated into a solid the tantalizing sensuous delights that had been suspended in solution all evening. And he danced with beating heart, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of clouding the solution again. Something that had been bottled up in him for years seemed to have become uncorked; through his veins the contents were being poured with divine extravagance and divinely intoxicating effect.
When the music ceased they came to a halt just under the balcony. Without looking at each other they continued to hold hands. Grover felt in his waistcoat
