She was wearing a black dinner dress; black was certainly for her. Gwen took her hand and kept it and said to me, "Does a beautiful brunette live on the other side?" I laughed. "And a platinum blonde across the hall. Just below me lives--" "I know," Gwen answered. "Don't tell us." I carried my glass to the bathroom, rinsed it, and made a highball. "We met yesterday," I said to Gwen. "She comes from Pasadena." I handed the drink to Yvonne. "Miss Taylor--is an old friend of an old friend of mine." Gwen said, "She knows. She's been listening." Yvonne wouldn't look at me, then. But she said, "I told her. Do you mind terribly much? It's your own fault--for unlocking the door." I ignored that. "Lemme see, then. Just where the hell were we?" "You were dancing. And I wish you'd go on." "Not the heat--" I began--"but--" Gwen came over to my chair. "Come on." So we danced a little--not very well. "I wish," Yvonne said, "I could do that step." I took a good look at her. And I looked back, in my mind, at her stylized past. Her gray eyes were wide open and very bright. Otherwise she was composed. She didn't seem to realize how unprecedented it was for her not to mind that she had been caught eavesdropping on a man she'd known for a day who was alone with a girl she did not know at all. She should have been shocked--shocked as much as if she had suddenly found she had gone up on the stage and begun ad-libbing a part in a play. But she wasn't even concerned; she behaved as if she had always been in the cast. Maybe she had. When she said she wished she could do the off-beat step, I stopped dancing. "Show her," I said to Gwen. Gwen looked straight into my eyes--her back to Yvonne. One curved brow went up, inquiringly. I nodded the least bit. Gwen let go of me as if I had disappeared. She turned and smiled and held out her arms. Yvonne set her drink down carefully and got up and walked to Gwen. They began dancing--not trying the step--but just dancing. In a moment--in the same moment--without either of them saying a word--they switched; Yvonne led Gwen. I sprawled back on the divan. They danced for a long time and as they danced it seemed to me Yvonne relaxed a millimeter at a time--until she moved like a nebula--all gold and white and black. Gwen just smiled--looking at nothing for a long time, and finally looking down--an inch or so--into Yvonne's eyes. When they stopped, Yvonne said softly, "That was wonderful!" "Like it?" "I never felt I was doing a rumba before. Even"--she laughed lightly toward me--"with the eminent professor Wylie." "He's good," Gwen said. "But you have to be experienced." "I used to think I was." "You will be, lamb," Gwen said. An announcer lengthily discussed various food products. Gwen turned him down to an indecipherable mutter. When strains of music returned thinly, Yvonne asked, "Can you tango?" Gwen nodded.