“Very well—but I shan’t beg your pardon or take back anything I’ve said. Thank heaven this Prom ends to-morrow!” It was a disagreeable incident. Joy didn’t see how he could have been so unpleasant about her appearance, when everyone else was so exceedingly pleasant. And then Jack Barnett came striding across the floor, and took her from the arms of the boy she was dancing with—and they floated off together, and Joy forgot everything else. “I thought this morning that you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen,” he was whispering in her ear. “Now I know you’re the prettiest I ever want to see!” They were near the orchestra at this point, and the saxophone was blaring extra loud; but Joy could hear only a sweet singing, somewhere inside. “If they make ’em any prettier than you—I don’t want to see ’em. It would finish me! You’re ripping me all to pieces as it is.” His grasp tightened and grew hot on her bare skin. “Do you know you’re ripping me all to pieces?” “What’s that?” she asked, still lost in the wonder and thrill of his admiration. They were near a door, and he stopped dancing. “I can see you’re tired,” he said. “They’ve kept you dancing every minute—most popular girl in the room—let’s go down to the swimming-pool and sit this out.” She hesitated. “Tom won’t know where I am.” “Oh, Tom!” He relegated that subject to oblivion with princely carelessness. “Look here, if we start dancing again, someone’s bound to cut in on me right off—and I want to talk to you!” She followed him as he led the way downstairs to the dark, scented stillness that was the college swimming-pool in more unromantic times. Here and there along the sides she could see the glowing ends of cigarettes; but Barnett led her down to the end of the pool, where they were far from everyone, and found a sofa underneath some leafy thing that he told her was one of the many potted palms strewn around the place. They sat down. He sat very near her. “How old are you?” he wanted to know. “No, don’t tell me—you might be any age. Yesterday, you might have been eighteen. To-night, you are twenty-five—at least that. By gad, I like a girl to vary!” Somehow in the darkness his hand found hers. It was moist, hot; the sensation was very disagreeable; but Joy did not take hers away. She could not think quickly about anything at all— “You—I never met anyone like you.” His voice was coming hurried, breathless; there was something in the contact of her hand that utterly changed the tone of it. “You—you’re ripping me all to pieces to-night!” Before she could realize what was happening, he had his arms around her and had pressed her to him in the moist, warm darkness. She knew he was searching for her lips. Joy closed her eyes in the palpitant blackness; his kiss would be mysterious, wonderful.