The unaccustomed stimulant cleared her vision. The room stood still, the different objects in it became distinct. She looked on the whirling figure of the woman in the centre, the open-mouth turmoil-stirred crowd in the background, with dispassionate eyes. She was deadly cool. To her memory came Graham's words of that same afternoon. "_Because you are too good for them!_" She remembered the very emphasis of his tone. Well, he was right, and yet not right. She had been too good for them, but she world show them now! With the sudden flash of resolve, the first unnatural hardening effect of the whisky passed, and in a whirl the exhilaration came. She laughed and responded convulsively to the man's embrace. Bismarck Anne gave a final kick, and fell in some one's open arms. The men, shouting frantically, began to stir preparatory to regaining their feet. Then they sank back again with a fresh cheer. Into the centre of the ring Molly tripped unsteadily, and stood for a moment looking about her with uncertain foolishly smiling eyes. Her cheeks were a glow of red. She glanced toward the musicians, and, with the tip of her fingers, raised her dress to her knees, waiting for the music to begin. The room was deadly still. She could see, looking at her excitedly, all the men she had met and come to know in the last year. She saw them dimly, as through a haze. Would the music never begin? What were they waiting for? A draught blew cold along the floor. She felt it on her legs. Why was it? Oh, yes, she was holding her skirts up to dance, to show them that she was no better than this woman, Bismarck Anne. And then the black cloud that had been gathering so long, the undefined guilty feeling at nothing, broke over her. She wanted to go on--the music had begun now--but she could not. Twice she tried. Something held her, something real, something stronger than herself. She did not recognize them, these ancestral voices, but they laid upon her their commands. She dropped her skirts, and covered her eyes with her two hands, and burst through the ring of men, and ran out through the night to her own cabin, where she threw herself on her bed weeping bitterly. She was ashamed. XXXI LAFOND'S FIRST CARD Lafond, in the meantime, had left the dispensation of drinks almost entirely to Frosty. He darted here and there in the crowd, a light of unwonted excitement in his eye. "That thar Mike's shore waked up," commented Old Mizzou. "Never see him so plumb animated. He shore looks nutty. Dance halls is mostly too rich fer his blood, I reckon." But Tony Houston and Jack Snowie and a dozen others by now knew better than to attribute this excitement to dance halls. Lafond possessed in his pocket a copy of Knapp's dismissal, and he had told them of it.