"I think I'd like to dance to this tune. You must dance with me. I don't think you ought to be out of your own party," she said to Logan, who caught her up in a great bear's hug, trod on her toes, knocked her knees, pressed his fingers so tight into her back that she could hardly bear it, and at last, as the music ceased, deposited her by Mendel's side. "It is a marvellous thing, this machine," he said. "I should like to go on at it all night. Have you been dancing? You look hot. You said you weren't going to dance." "I made Logan dance. He nearly killed me!" "How did you get on?" "Not--not very well." "You don't like him?" Jessie Petrie came running up: "Kühler, Kühler!" she cried. "Do, do dance with me!" He was very angry with Morrison for daring not to like Logan, for making up her mind in two minutes that she did not like him. He gave her a furious glance as Weldon took his place and started a waltz, put his arms round Jessie's waist, and swung into the dance. "Oh, Kühler!" said Jessie in her pretty birdlike voice, "I heard the most awful story about you the other day." "Do be quiet!" he grunted. "Dance!" But he was out of temper, out of tune, and the music he had been crashing out on the pianola was thudding in his head, so that he could not respond either to the music of the waltz or to Jessie's eagerness. "Isn't it funny Thompson being back in London? I don't like him a bit now. You have spoiled me for everybody else. Do you want me to come on Friday as usual?" "Do be quiet." "What's the matter? You aren't dancing at all nicely and you haven't looked at me once this evening." "No; don't come on Friday." "Not----?" Her voice was shrill with pain. "No. That's all over." She hung limp in his arms and her face was a ghastly yellow. She muttered:-- "Take me out. . . . I think I'm going to faint." He half-carried her into the passage, where she sat on the stairs and began to cry. Neither of them noticed Clowes and the young man from the Detmold sitting above them. "Don't cry!" he said roughly; "what have you got to cry about?" "I never thought you only wanted me for that." "You came to me. I didn't ask you to come." "But I do love you so. I only want you to love me a little." "I don't know how to love a little. When I love it is with the whole of me, and it is for always." "But can't we be pals, just pals? We've been such pals." "I'm sick to death of it all," he said violently, "sick to death. You're the best girl in London, Jessie, but it's no good--it's no good." Clowes and the young man ostentatiously and with a great clatter went higher up the stairs, but neither Jessie nor Mendel heard them. The pain and the shame they were suffering absorbed them. "I never thought," said Jessie, "it was near the end. I've always known when it was near the end before. It is like being struck by lightning."