A short femur line gave him an entirely false appearance of stockiness. On the contrary, he stood a full five feet ten, was thewed with fine compactness and solid with clean living and clean with solid living. Even the fiber of his remarkably fine hair was strong. It was the brilliant honey color of full-moon shine, lay off his brow, but not down, lending him a look of distinction to which he was hardly entitled. He regarded Lilly with a furtiveness prompted solely by a desire not to appear audacious. Her softly rising throat just recovering its normal beat reminded him of the sweet agitation of pigeons in the park. He was close enough to be conscious of an amazing impulse on his part to reach over and touch the soft white flesh above the cove of her elbow. A little blue thread of a vein showed there, maddeningly. A sense of inner pounding suffocated him. He felt as if he had suddenly stepped into a bath of charged waters, little explosions all over the surface of him. Then a numbness so that, when he placed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, it was insensate, and, somewhat frightened, he pinched the back of his hand, relieved by the stab of pain. "Do you dance, Mr. Penny?" "Me? I--No, I guess I'm what you would call temperance when it comes to frolics." A little clearing had been made in the parlor, a music box pricking out the "Blue Danube." From the dining room they sat regarding the three or four couples, Lilly marking time with the toe of her white-kid slipper. The elixir of the dance could rush to her head like wine, but she was not sought after as a partner, due to her reserve against a too locked embrace and a curious tendency to lead. "To me, dancing is poetry as written by the feet." He relieved her of her napkin and ice-cream dish, eager for suitable reply to this syrupy observation. "Speaking of feet, have you seen the show at Forest Park Highlands this week?" "No." "Well, really remarkable. There is an armless fellow there who eats and juggles, even writes, with his toes." "Indeed!" "Sometime if you would honor me by--by accompanying--I--er--Becker, did I understand the name to be? I wonder if by any chance you are related to Ben Becker." She turned upon him with the immemorial sense of a point about to be scored, her eyes full of relish. "Why, I think I'm slightly related, Mr. Penny. He happens to be my father." He whacked his thigh. "You don't tell me! Why, I've bought rope and twine from your father for three years! A mighty fine gentleman, there. Well, well, this is a small world, after all." She noticed his large, protuberant Adam's apple throbbing with the accelerando of pleasure, and a thaw set in between them. He let his arm drape over the back of her chair, a stolen sense of her nearness dizzying him. He was like a man with a suddenly developed new sense, which he could not tickle enough.