He answered her politely, and walked on. He braced himself against the wall, the strain completely broken. She hadn't told. She hadn't demanded that her mother take her home. She hadn't said: "Betty, what kind of men do you ask to your dances?" Why hadn't she? Again he saw his big, well-clothed figure in a glass, and he smiled. Was it because he was already transformed? Here she came, dancing with Goodhue, and Goodhue seemed trying to lead her close. George didn't understand at first that he silently asked for news of Dalrymple. His own eyes studied Sylvia. Her face held too much colour. She gave him back his challenge, but the contempt in her eyes broadened his smile. He managed a reassuring nod to Goodhue, but Dalrymple, for the time, was of no importance. Sylvia was going to fight, and not like a spoiled child. He must have impressed her as being worthy of a real fight. He faced the rest of the evening with new confidence. He forgot to be over-careful with these people whose actions were unstudied. He dodged across the floor and took Betty from Lambert Planter while Lambert raised his eyebrows, relinquished her with pronounced reluctance, and watched George guide her swiftly away. Maybe Lambert was right, and he ought to tell Betty, but not now. To-night, against all his expectations, he found himself having a good time, enjoying more than anything else this intimate and exhilarating progress with Betty. Always he hated to give her up, but he danced with other girls, and found they liked to dance with him because he was big, and danced well, and was Dicky Goodhue's friend and Betty's, and played football; but, since he couldn't very well ask Sylvia, he only really cared to dance with Betty. He was at Betty's table for supper. He didn't like to hear these pretty girls laughing about Dalrymple, but then with them Dalrymple must have exercised a good deal of restraint. It ought to be possible to make them see the ugly side, to bare the man's instinct to go from this party to another. Then they wouldn't laugh. Lambert sat down for awhile. "Where's Sylvia?" Betty asked. Lambert shrugged his shoulders. "It's hard enough to keep track of you, Betty. Sylvia's a sister." George gathered that Sylvia's absence from that table had impressed them both. He knew very well where she was, across the room, focus for as large a gathering as Betty's, chiefly of young men, eager for her brilliancy. Lambert went on, glancing at George his questions of the smoking-room. It wasn't long before the dawn when George said polite things with Goodhue and Wandel, and after their pattern. In the lower hall he noticed that all these pleasure seekers, a while ago flushed and happy, had undergone a devastating change. Faces were white. Gowns looked rumpled and old. The laughter and chatter were no longer impulsive. "The way one feels after a hard game," he thought.