d for her knitting."

"Who is this Evelyn?" I said.

And then the rhythm of the music became too much for us, and we did not
speak any more, only danced; only danced and liked each other more and
more.

That night it seemed there were no tired men or women in Aiken. There
were no lingering groups of yarn-swapping men in the buffet, only
half-melted humanity who gulped down a glass of champagne and flew back
to the dance. We made so much noise that half the dogs in Aiken barked
all night, and roosters waked from sleep began to crow at eleven
o'clock.

I am sure that Lucy did not give many thoughts to poor John Fulton,
worrying his head off in far New York. She had the greatest power upon
her own thoughts of any woman or man I ever knew. And always she chose
agreeable and even delightful things to think about. When I try to
make castles in the air I get worrying about details, such as neighbors
and plumbing. Sometimes I have felt that it would be agreeable to run
away from everyone and everything, and live on some South Sea beach in
an undershirt and an old pair of trousers. I can see the palms and the
breadfruit, as well as the next man. I can picture the friendly brown
girls with their bright, black eyes and their long necklaces of scarlet
flowers and many-colored shells, and I can hear the long-drawn roar of
the surf on the coral beach. But always my bright, hopeful pictures go
to smash on details. More insistent than the roar of the surf, I hear
the humming of great angry mosquitoes, and I try to figure out what I
should do if I came down with appendicitis and no surgeon within a
thousand miles.

Lucy chose her thoughts as she would have selected neckties, choosing
the pretty ones, tossing the ugly ones aside and never thinking of them
again, or, for that matter, of the bill for the pretty neckties that
would be sent to her husband. Only very great matters, such as love
and death, could have occupied her mind against her will.

Toward one o'clock the dance became hilarious. One or two men had the
good sense to go home, two or three others had not. One of them--the
King boy--made quite a nuisance of himself, and to revenge himself for
a snub (greatly exaggerated by the alcoholic mind), sought and found
the hotel switchboard and in the midst of a fox trot shut off all the
lights.

But the music went right on, and so did many of the dancers. There
were violent collisions, shouts of laughter, and ex