There was a burst of applause. The lights went up. The orchestra swung into a dance tune and the floor filled. Lennox lost the girl in the crush and wandered aimlessly to the side of the ballroom where an unidentified person took the candlestick from him. He went to the bar, now inhabited exclusively by the red-headed teacher from Yale and the bartender. "Listen," Lennox began incoherently, "A dark girl. In an off-the-shoulder dress. She.... With cropped hair and oriental eyes. She gleamed...." "Who?" the red-head inquired, weaving violently. "A girl with black short hair. She--You heard me. Do you know her? Know who she is?" The bartender shrugged. The red-head eyed Lennox fixedly, meanwhile shaking his head. "Never heard of her. Never-never-never. No such thing's dark girls anymore. Species extinct. Like used t'be everywhere poodles. Now only boxers. Poodles extinct. Also poodle brunettes, Q.E.D.?" Lennox returned to the ballroom. He searched for the girl. He searched for Cooper. Two steps led up to the white door of the oval library. Lennox mounted them for a better view and found himself face to face with _Le Jazz Hot_. "Who was she?" he burst out. "Pardon, M'sieur?" _Le Jazz Hot_ goggled at him. "The dark girl. In the dance with us." "I am so sorry." Lennox abandoned him, left the steps and prowled around the edge of the ballroom. He went again to the bar, regarded the red-head and the bartender without comprehension, wandered off and discovered, in a hall of Chinese teapaper, a small Christmas tree hung with corsages. A honey-haired girl in a thin-strapped evening gown was unpinning some orchids from the tree. "I beg your pardon," Lennox mumbled. She looked at him curiously. "The dark girl who was dancing with us. Do you know her?" "Dancing with us?" All her charm disappeared in the bray of her voice. "My God!" Lennox thought in panic, "I haven't heard her speak. What if she...." Aloud, he said: "The Candle-Dance. The dark girl in our circle who--" "I wasn't in the Candle-Dance," the girl informed him coldly and turned away. She was the wrong stereotype. Lennox went back to the library steps and began searching the dance floor, couple by couple. Below him and to one side a voice called: "Psst! Hey Jake!" He looked down. Cooper was standing there, grinning. "Three down from the drums. With a guy in hornshell glasses." Lennox glared at Cooper, challenging derision, then stared at the dance band. He found her and murdered the man in the spectacles. Without moving his eyes he asked: "Who is she?" "Don't know." "I've got to meet her." "Grab her after this dance." "I've got to be introduced." "Come on, Jake! This isn't the nineties." "I want to be introduced. Can you swing it?" "I can try."