He rejected the olive-branch, and, rudely ignoring my proffered case, crossed to the settee where Nanette and O’Shea sat side by side. “I say, Nanette,” he exclaimed, “what about going on to Chelsea?” Nanette barely glanced up as she replied: “No, I don’t want to dance any more to-night, Jim.” “Why not dance here?” cried her friend, pointing in the direction of the piano. “Do you play, Mr. Decies?” “Not dance music,” I confessed gladly. “But Jim does,” she went on. “Go on, Jim! Just one.” “Jim” crossed to the piano, offering an excellent imitation of an ox approaching Chicago. He crashed into a piece of syncopation that put years on the instrument. I had never heard the item before and trust that I shall never hear it again. I saw O’Shea smilingly shake his head; then Nanette ran across to me, and off we went around the furniture, I wondering which would burst first, a wire in my reeling piano or a blood-vessel in the empurpled skull of the player. Nanette danced because she was too happy to keep still, even with O’Shea beside her. I danced because I had no choice in the matter. It was an odd business, pointedly illustrating the part that Terpsichore plays in this modern civilization of ours. Nanette was dancing with me, but she wanted to dance with O’Shea. The other pair didn’t want to dance at all. They just wanted to be alone together. And Milton didn’t want to be the band. In fact, the whole thing was a sort of neutral territory, or sanctuary, in which the various protagonists found temporary refuge. I don’t know what momentous decision Nanette’s girl friend was shirking, but when Milton threatened to weaken: “Go on, Jim! Please go on!” she cried, avoiding the ardent gaze of her partner. Milton, the most ferociously reluctant musician I have ever seen at work, made a renewed assault upon the keyboard. He was watching Nanette, who rarely took her eyes off O’Shea; and a vein rose unpleasantly upon his forehead. He perpetrated some discords that set my teeth on edge. How long this might have continued I hesitate to guess. Milton’s gorge was rising tropically. I doubt that his destruction of my piano would have ceased while life remained in the instrument, but an interruption came. Nanette and I had navigated an awkward channel behind the armchair and were beating up toward the settee and O’Shea. The man from Mesopotamia had ingeniously steered his partner into a little book-lined recess at the farther end of the room. I had my back to the open window and Nanette was facing it. Suddenly she grew rigid. Her face became transfigured with an expression of horror that I can never forget. She pulled up dead--staring, staring past me, into the darkness of the street beyond. “What is it, Nanette?” I began, when the music ceased with a crash and I saw Milton bound to his feet.