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 did know the facts till afterward. Thought she must be the original human sponge."

"I'm full of those little tricks," observed Cecily. "You sort of have to be these days. Don't you, Yvonne? You have three alternatives—drink actually, drink ostensibly, or else be called a wet smack. I refuse to be called a wet smack."

The conversation dealt briefly with prohibition, then veered to other topics. Jock left the burden of it to the rest and relapsed into moody silence. A dread of the evening's performance had frown in him, all in the last few minutes. To walk out beside Yvonne into the spotlight, to bow and scrape to the crowd, to kneel and strum, with these two looking on. . . . There was suddenly nothing in all the world he wanted less to do. He felt placed at a definite disadvantage. This fellow Bill—budding architect, Cecily had said—what would he think? What was he thinking now? "Probably looks on me as about one degree higher than a confounded chorus man!" . . . He could imagine Bill on the way home, upbraiding Cecily, saying of himself, Jock, "What do you see in a sap like that? Why, he doesn't amount to anything!" . . . destroying with a few caustic sentences the whole structure of her esteem.

The orchestra was playing again—the last dance before eight o'clock. Jock grasped Cecily's elbow almost roughly. "Come on, let's try this."

She danced perfectly, with rhythmic effortless ease. "Do I still hang on your left thumb like a coat on a peg?" she quoted after a moment, sparkling up at him.

"You know you don't. I wish you wouldn't remind me of all those ancient dirty cracks."

"Why not? They made me what I am today"