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 hers: "To New York!" he suggested and she sipped the cocktail: "To New York!" she said.

"Ever seen the first city?" he asked her.

"Never."

"You will," he promised her.

"You dance," pronounced Lew, his arm about her, "like a dream. Who have you been practicing with?"

"Paul Denny, mostly," Ellen told him. "A few other friends."

"What sort of a friend of yours is Denny?"

"He used to be on the boat with my father. He was here for a year and a winter, but he's gone back to the boat. He didn't like the city."

"Some don't," said Lew, satisfied with the tone of her explanation. He grasped more closely her soft, flexible body. She made persistent resistance. He danced not at all like Paul, who had held her with a bit of awe and always with respect. Lew Alban knew, in his grasp of a girl, neither awe nor respect; to dance with him required Ellen to duel, subtly, against him.

He liked, for a while, to make attempt, to feel her repulse; truce for a moment, then attempt; repulse; attempt. Then he tired of it. "Let's go somewhere else," he proposed.

"I must go home," said Ellen, positively.

He laughed and bid her: "Get your coat."

In the dressing-room, her sensation of power which had sustained her early in the evening, utterly forsook Ellen.