But Jock's eyes were still luminous and faraway. "Humm?" he said.
And she knew he had not even heard her.
"Oh-h!" A queer rattle in her throat. Then swiftly she was leaning over him, striking at him like a little savage, raining small stinging blows on his face and head, on his chest. "I hate you—oh—you"
The blade of indifference, sawing away at the cord, had severed it at last.
Jock caught her wrists and held them. Her frantic words continued. "I hate you—oh how I hate you—you asked me here and then treated me like this"
A pause. Molly's face became less livid. Relaxed. She turned away. She picked up the silver slippers Jock had brought, and put them on, and tied the little tassels over the insteps. "All right," she said tonelessly. "We'll go back. A prom's a prom, and I won't let you spoil it for me. But I meant what I said. I do hate you—now. I never want to see you again."
Upstairs, in the quiet dark, Cecily Graves was whispering, "I love him! I love him so! Oh, make me the way he likes girls to be . . ."
The prom was madder now. It seemed to rush and to lurch and to romp. It was hectic, hysterical. . . . Searchlights marched over it, dyeing faces purple and ted and ghastly green, catching the beads and sequins
