36
FLAMING
YOUTH
upon hers, closer, closer, changed, seemed to become dimly
luminous. Her arms, without volition, crept upward to his shoulders. She was incongruously and painfully conscious of something pressing into her bosom, one of his pearl shirt-studs, and drew away from it slightly. He bent his head after her. And then, as their lips met and merged—the shock! She went limp under it. After a long, long minute in which were blended the pulsations of the music, the undermining odours of the night, the look of the passing girl’s eyes (how heavy were her own now!), the memory of that broken whisper overheard in the limousine, and the surge of the blood in her veins, she heard him say: “Let’s go.” “Where?” “T’ve got my car here.” She was silent, deeply, passively acquiescent to his will. Misconstruing her speechlessness, he urged: “Come on, sweetie! We'll take a fifty-mile-an-hour dip into the landscape. The little boat can go some.” “Pll have to get a wrap.” “Take my coat.” His arm tightened, guiding her. She lifted a hungry face. He bent again when a door opened shedding a broad ray of light upon them. Against the glaring background moved Constance, a vision of witchery in her filmy gown, followed by Emslie Selfridge. “Pat!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” Before the confused girl could reply, her escort came briskly to her rescue. “I caught it peeking behind a bush,” he explained, “and it wasn’t a bur-gu-lar after all.
So I’m taking it in to see what it is and whether it can dance.”
