He led the way back to the parlor. Four black men sat in a corner vigorously sawing and picking their instruments. One of them, the leader, called out in stentorian tones, "All hands fer de fust set!" and there was a laughing rush from the hall and the veranda of several couples to secure places. Seeing a chance to get away from his host, John drew back into the hall, where he found himself jostled and ignored by the tempestuous human mass. He edged his way along a wall to the veranda, and there saw something startlingly disagreeable. It was Joel Eperson and Tilly standing side by side, their faces averted toward the gate. Joel was regarding her with the eyes of dumb adoration and listening closely to something she was saying. John saw that the opposite end of the veranda was deserted and he went to it. He tried to keep his eyes from the pair, but it was impossible. His misery increased, seeming to ooze into him from some external reservoir of pain. All around him surged a life bewilderingly new and fatuous. He saw Joel bend down to pick up a flower Tilly dropped and saw him smile as he gave it back to her. What could she be saying, with that sweet, drawn look about her lips? What was Joel asking? He saw her nod, and Joel took her arm and the two went down the steps to the gravel walk that led from the house to the gate. Here back and forth they walked, arm in arm, now in the full light from the door and windows, again in the half-darkness near the fence. Once for fully five minutes they lingered at the gate while the silent spectator of their movements leaned tense and rigid against the balustrade. The promenade was quite in accordance with rural propriety and custom, but John could not understand why that pair in particular should be the only ones in the entire company to engage in it. It did not seem right. How could it be right? The music, the sonorous calls to the dancers, the tripping of feet, pounded his tortured brain. The whole world in its new aspect seemed to meet him with fangs and claws exposed. He wanted to fight something physically, to express by oaths and blows the resentment packed within his primitive breast. He felt his gnarled and hardened fingers at Joel Eperson's thin neck. He saw the long hair sway back and forth as he shook the love-smitten man. His clutch tightened till Joel's eyes bulged from their sockets, and then, in gloating fancy, John dashed him to the ground, where he lay exposed to Tilly's view. But reality has little to do with the tricks of the imagination, and there stood Eperson at the fence with Tilly by his side. Two girls were approaching. One was Sally Teasdale, the other Martha Jane Eperson. "They've told the truth about you," the former greeted John, with a teasing laugh, as she introduced the slight, plain, dark girl whose hand she held. "You are really a woman-hater, or you would not be off here by yourself when all the girls want to know you."