Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/156

 tion. His brow, fiercely intent, drooped lower and lower upon her generous acclivities until his head almost seemed to teeter there unstably like the rolling stone on its perch of moss. His English had vanished in his hour of need; he no longer could remember any phrase adequate to thank Frau Quackenbush for the honour and suggest recess. When the orchestra paused he waved an arm mechanically and continued his murderous rigadoon so that the musicians were forced to resume. Indeed, as Frau Quackenbush began to suspect, cocktails, heat, excitement and continuous rhythmic gyration had bewitched him into a sort of hypnosis. It began to seem a nightmare in which she was condemned to rotate forever while a small dervish in dangerously slack trousers drowsed uneasily on her 'bosom. She herself was succumbing to the unholy vertigo. Her face was flushed, her eyes closed, she had a strong desire to scream. She controlled herself, as I suppose many a strongminded matron has done in moments of hellish temptation, by forcing herself to recall the par-