This was a more outrageous intimacy, because it was unmistakably the clinging embrace of two lovers in a darkened room, behind the privacy of a securely locked door. Neither of them seemed to care that the dance floor wasn't quite that dimly lit and that their completely shameless amorousness would be observed by everyone on the floor. And then she saw that they were kissing each other just as shamelessly, that their lips were meeting and clinging, and that one of the kisses seemed to go on and on. She had opened her lips and.... Oh, dear God, how could she endure watching them, knowing what such a kiss could mean, how it could burn and scorch and drive a man and woman deeply, truly in love, to the kind of madness that wasn't in the least profane when it was sanctified by that kind of love. But when it wasn't-- How she ever lived through the rest of the evening without becoming hysterical and screaming accusations at both of them she had never been able to explain or analyze in a rational way to her own satisfaction and seal away in the mental file that would become, from time to time, a raw, profusely bleeding wound again. Perhaps the salve which Roger had applied to the wound toward the end of the evening had helped a little. He'd begun to pour it on at the end of the second dance, chiefly by noticing her again and pressing her hand warmly, and when they arose to leave he was all courtesy, all consideration again. He'd put Lathrup into a taxi at her own request and they'd gone home together. Not to her home, but to Roger's apartment. But for those three weeks Roger's apartment had become more of a home to her than the two-room, rent-controlled apartment she'd occupied for ten years on the northern fringe of the Village. As the taxi shot westward and then turned south toward the Chelsea section--the night club was on Fifty-Second Street just east of Broadway--his arm went around her and he pressed her very tightly to him. "Your boss is quite a woman, Honeybunch," he said. "But she can't hold a candle to you. All right, she's a top-drawer beauty, distinctly on the special side. There are a lot of men who would find her irresistible, but not me. No matter how much I found myself attracted to her it wouldn't ... well, flower into an immediate interest, the kind of interest that doesn't quite make you know whether you're coming or going." She wasn't deceived or mollified, but some instinct of caution deep in her mind prevented her from giving too free a rein to her anger. "Your interest in her seemed immediate enough to me," she said. "I happened to notice the way you were dancing." He gave her waist an even tighter squeeze. "Good grief--you can hardly blame me for going overboard just a little. How often does a guy like me get to dance with a lady in sables?" "She never wears sables--or mink either. It just happens to be an eccentricity of hers. I wish to hell you'd shut up and not try to be amusing."