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FLAMING

YOUTH

“T see that you’re of an independent turn of expression,” he commented mockingly. “You seek the just word.” “But they are, aren’t they? How do you keep that way?” “A little riding. A little fencirg. A little boxing. A little swimming. At my advanced age, you see, one must preserve oneself.” “Now you’re laughing at me. I like it... . Why don’t you applaud?” she demanded indignantly as the music fell silent. “Don’t you want any more of this dance with me?” “Certainly I do!” He clapped violently, she joining him. “Will that serve?” Contentedly as a purry kitten she nestled to him as the drums signalised the resumption of the tune. “Let’s not talk this time,” said she.

They merged silently into the current of physical rhythm about them. Responsive to the music by instinct, guiding with the intuition of the perfect dancer, Scott looked about him on the crowded scene. The measure had swollen to a fuller harmony, taken on a throbbing, suggestive quality, and he sensed the reaction in the close-joined couples around him. The girls danced by him with their eyes drooping, their cheeks inflamed, a little line of passion across their foreheads. They seemed to cling to their partners with tightening grasp, each couple a separate entity, alone with the surge of the music and what it covertly implied, the allegro furioso

of tumultuous,

untamable

blood.

He

glanced

down at the young girl in his arms. Her lashes, long and fringed, all but touched the swell of her cheek; her lips were lightly parted for the rapid breathing; a little pulse beat in her neck