"So long, people," said Swann to the others. But it was perfectly obvious that he did not include Lane. It was also obvious, at least to Lane, that Swann showed something of intolerance and mastery in the dark, sullen glance he bestowed upon Helen. She followed him across the room and out into the hall, from whence her guarded voice sounded unintelligibly. But Lane's keen ear, despite the starting of the Victrola, caught Swann's equally low, yet clearer reply. "You can't kid me. I'm on. You'll vamp Lane if he lets you. Go to it!" As Helen came back into the room Mackay ran for her, and locking her in the same embrace--even a tighter one than Swann's--he fell into the strange steps that had so shocked Lane. Moreover, he was manifestly a skilful dancer, and showed the thin, lithe, supple body of one trained down by this or some other violent exercise. Lane did not watch the dancers this time. Again Bessy Bell refused to get up from the lounge. The youth was insistent. He pawed at her. And manifestly she did not like that, for her face flamed, and she snapped: "Stop it--you bonehead! Can't you see I want to sit here by Mr. Lane?" The youth slouched away fuming to himself. Whereupon Lane got up, and seated himself beside Bessy so that he need not shout to be heard. "That was nice of you, Miss Bell--but rather hard on the youngster," said Lane. "He makes me sick. All he wants to do is lolly-gag.... Besides, after what you said to Helen about the jazz I wouldn't dance in front of you on a bet." She was forceful, frank, naive. She was impressed by his nearness; but Lane saw that it was the fact of his being a soldier with a record, not his mere physical propinquity that affected her. She seemed both bold and shy. But she did not show any modesty. Her short skirt came above her bare knees, and she did not try to hide them from Lane's sight. At fifteen, like his sister Lorna, this girl had the development of a young woman. She breathed health, and something elusive that Lane could not catch. If it had not been for her apparent lack of shame, and her rouged lips and cheeks, and her plucked eyebrows, she would have been exceedingly alluring. But no beauty, however striking, could under these circumstances, stir Lane's heart. He was fascinated, puzzled, intensely curious. "Why wouldn't you dance jazz in front of me?" he inquired, with a smile. "Well, for one thing I'm not stuck on it, and for another I'll say you said a mouthful." "Is that all?" he asked, as if disappointed. "No. I'd respect what you said--because of where you've been and what you've done." It was a reply that surprised Lane. "I'm out of date, you know." She put a finger on the medal on his breast and said: "You could never be out of date." The music and the sliding shuffle ceased. "Now beat it," said Helen. "I want to talk to Daren." She gayly shoved the young people ahead of her in a mass, and called to Bessy: "Here, you kid vamp, lay off Daren."