leasure jarred on her like a false note.

"Don't be angry. To-morrow it will all be different again. Let me have
just this one night of pleasure--let me enjoy myself in my own way."

"To hear you talk, one would think I had no wish but to spoil your
pleasure."

"Oh, I didn't mean that. You misunderstand everything."

"What I say or think has surely no weight with you?"

She gave up the attempt to pacify him, and leaning back in her chair,
stifled a yawn. Then with an exclamation of: "How hot it is up here!"
she peeled off her gloves. With her freed hands, she tidied her hair,
drawing out and thrusting in again the silver dagger that held the coil
together. Then she let her bare arms fall on her lap, where they lay in
strong outline against the black of her dress. One was almost directly
under Maurice's eyes; even by the poor light, he could see the mark
left on the inside of the wrist, by the buttons of the glove. It was a
generously formed arm, but so long that it looked slender, and its firm
white roundness was flawless from wrist to shoulder. He shut his eyes,
but he could see it through his eyelids. Sitting beside her like this,
in the semidarkness, morbidly aware of the perfume of her hair and
dress, he suddenly forgot that he had been rude, and she indifferent.
He was conscious only of the wish to drive it home to her, how unhappy
she was making him.

"Louise," he said so abruptly that she started. "I'm going to ask you
to do something for me. I haven't made many demands, have I?--since you
first called me your friend." He paused and fumbled for words.
"Don't--don't dance any more to-night. Don't dance again."

She stooped forward to look at him. "Not dance again?--I? What do you
mean?"

"What I say. Let us go home."

"Home? Now? When it's only half over?--You don't know what you are
saying." But her surprise was already on the wane.

"Oh, yes, I do. I'm not going to let you dance again."

She laughed, in spite of herself, at the new light in which he was
showing himself. But, the moment after, she ceased to laugh; for, with
an audacity he had not believed himself capable of, Maurice took the
arm that was lying next him, and, midway between wrist and elbow, put
his lips to it, kissing it several times, in different places.

Taken unawares, Louise was helpless. Then she freed herself, ungently.
"No, no, I won't have it. Oh, how can you be so foolish! My
gloves--where is my glove? Pick it up, and give