h open
palm.

"Break with that girl or I'll break your head," he said.

Dysart was down on the leaves, struggling up to his knees, then to his
feet, the thin blood running across his chin. The next instant he sprang
at Duane, who caught him by both arms and forced him savagely into
quivering inertia.

"Don't," he said. "You're only a thing that dances. Don't move, I tell
you.... Wipe that blood off and go and set the silly girl's heart at
rest.... And keep away from her afterward. Do you hear?"

He set his teeth and shook him so wickedly that Dysart's head rolled and
his wig fell off.

"I know something of your sloppy record," he continued, still shaking
him; "I know about your lap-dog fawning around Miss Seagrave. It is
generally understood that you're as sexless as any other of your kind. I
thought so, too. Now I know you. Keep clear of _me_ and _mine_,
Dysart.... And that will be about all."

He left him planted against a tree and walked toward the lights once
more, breathing heavily and in an ugly mood.

On the edge of the glade, just outside the lantern glow, he stood
sombre, distrait, inspecting the torn lace on his sleeve, while all
around him people were unmasking amid cries of surprise and shouts of
laughter, and the orchestra was sounding a march, and multicoloured
Bengal fires rolled in clouds from the water's edge, turning the woods
to a magic forest and the people to tinted wraiths.

Behind him he heard Rosalie's voice, caressing, tormenting by turns;
and, glancing around for her victim, beheld Grandcourt at heel in
calflike adoration.

Kathleen's laughter swung him the other way.

"Oh, Duane," she cried, the pink of excitement in her cheeks, "isn't it
all too heavenly! It looks like Paradise afire with all those rosy
clouds rolling under foot. Have you ever seen anything quite as
charming?"

"It's rotten," said Duane brusquely, tearing the tattered lace free and
tossing it aside.

"Wh-what!" she exclaimed.

"I say it's all rotten," he repeated, looking up at her. "All this--the
whole thing--the stupidity of it--the society that's driven to these
kind of capers, dreading the only thing it ever dreads--ennui! Look at
us all! For God's sake, survey us damn fools, herded here in our
pinchbeck mummery--forcing the sanctuary of these decent green woods,
polluting them with smoke and noise and dirty little intrigues! I'm sick
of it!"

"Duane!"

"Oh, yes; I'm one of 'em--dragging my idleness