It was a sleazy scrap of slightly soiled applegreen crêpe and its principal purpose seemed to be that of indicating vaguely the shape of Jenny’s behind, as she danced, caressing the twin soft points of her thighs with the lingering sterility of an aged lover. It looked as if she might have slept in it recently, and there was also a small hat of pale straw, of no particular shape, ribboned.

Jenny slid about in Mr. Talliaferro’s embrace with placid skill. She and Pete had just quarreled bitterly. Pete had, that is. Jenny’s bovine troubling placidity had merely dissolved into tears, causing her eyes to be more ineffable than ever, and she had gone calmly about what she had intended all the time: to have as much fun as she could, as long as she was here. Pete couldn’t walk out on her: all he could do would be to fuss at her or sulk, or maybe hit her. He had done that once, thereby voluntarily making himself her bond slave. She had rather liked it. . . .

Beyond lights, beyond the sound of the victrola, water was a minor ceaseless sound in the darkness; above, vague drowsy stars. Jenny danced on placidly, untroubled by Mr. Talliaferro’s endless flow of soft words against her neck, hardly conscious of his hand sliding a small concentric circle at the small of her back.

“She looks kind of nice, don’t she?” Fairchild said to his companion as they stood at the head of the companionway, come up for air. “Kind of soft and stupid and young, you know. Passive, and at the same time troubling, challenging.” He watched them for a time, then he added: “Now, there goes the Great Illusion, par excellence.”

“What’s Talliaferro’s trouble?” asked the Semitic man.

“The illusion that you can seduce women. Which you can’t. They just elect you.”

“And then, God help you,” the other added.

“And with words, at that,” Fairchild continued. “With words,” he repeated savagely.

“Well, why not with words? One thing gets along with women as well as another. And you are a funny sort to disparage words; you, a member of that species all of whose actions are controlled by words. It’s the word that overturns thrones and political parties and instigates vice crusades, not things: the Thing is merely the symbol for the Word. And more than that, think what a devil of a fix you and I’d be in were it not for words, were we to lose our faith in words. I’d have nothing to do all day long, and you’d have to work or starve to death.” He was silent for a while. Jenny yet slid and poised, pleasuring her soft young placidity. “And, after all, his illusion is just as nourishing as yours. Or mine, either.”

“I know: but yours or mine ain’t quite so ridiculous as his is.”

“How do you know they aren’t?” Fairchild had no reply, and the other continued: “After all, it doesn’t make any difference what you believe. Man is not only nourished by convictions, he is nourished by any conviction. Whatever you believe, you’ll always annoy some one, but you yourself will follow and bleed and die for it in the face of law, hell or high water. And those who die for causes will perish for any cause, the more tawdry it is, the quicker they flock to it. And be quite happy at it, too. It’s a provision of providence to keep their time occupied.” He sucked at his cigar, but it was dead.

“Do you know who is the happiest man in the world to-day? Mussolini, of course. And do you know who are next? The poor devils he will get killed with his Cæsar illusion. Don’t pity them, however: were it not Mussolini and his illusion it would be some one else and his cause. I believe it is some grand cosmic scheme for fertilizing the earth. And it could be so much worse,” he added. “Who knows? They might all migrate to America and fall into the hands of Henry Ford.

“So don’t you go around feeling superior to Talliaferro. I think his present illusion and its object are rather charming, almost as charming as the consummation of it would be—which is more than you can say for yours.” He held a match to his cigar. His sucking, intent face came abruptly out of the darkness, and as abruptly vanished again. He flipped the match toward the rail. “And so do you, you poor emotional eunuch; so do you, despite that bastard of a surgeon and a stenographer which you call your soul, so do you remember with regret kissing in the dark and all the tender and sweet stupidity of young flesh.”

“Hell,” said Fairchild, “let’s have another drink.”

His friend was too kind, too tactful to say I told you so.

.          .          .          .          .          .          .

Mrs. Maurier captured them as they reached the stairs. “Here you are,” she exclaimed brightly, prisoning their arms; “come: let’s all dance a while. We need men. Eva has taken Mark away from Dorothy, and she has no partner. Come, Mr. Fairchild; Julius.”

“We’re coming back,” Fairchild answered, “we’re going now to hunt up Gordon and the Major, and we’ll all come right back.”

“No, no,” she said soothingly, “we’ll send the steward for them. Come, now.”

“I think we better go,” Fairchild objected quickly. “The steward has been working hard all day: he’s tired out, I expect. And Gordon’s kind of timid; he might not come if you send a servant for him.” She released them doubtfully, staring at them with her round, astonished face.

“You will . . . ? Do come back, Mr. Fairchild.”

“Sure, sure,” Fairchild replied, descending hastily.

“Julius,” Mrs. Maurier called after them helplessly.

“I’ll bring them up in ten minutes,” the Semitic man promised, following. Mrs. Maurier watched them until they had passed from view, then she turned away. Jenny and Mr. Talliaferro were still dancing, as were Mrs. Wiseman and the ghostly poet. Miss Jameson, partnerless, sat at the card table playing solitaire. Mrs. Maurier looked on until the record played itself through. Then she said firmly:

“I think we’d better change partners among ourselves until the men come up.”

Mr. Talliaferro released Jenny obediently, and Jenny, released, stood around for a while, then she drifted away and down the deck, passing that tall ugly man leaning alone at the rail, and further along the niece spoke from the shadow:

“Going to bed?”

Jenny paused and turning her head toward the voice she saw the faint glint of Pete’s hat. She went on. “Uhuh,” she replied. The moon was getting up, rising out of the dark water: a tarnished, implacable Venus.

Her aunt came along soon, prowling, peering fretfully into shadowy chairs and obscure corners, implacable and tactless as a minor disease.

“My Lord, what’ve we got to do now?” the niece moaned. She sighed. “She sure makes life real and earnest for everybody, that woman does.”

“Dance, I guess,” Pete answered. The vicious serrated rim of his hat, where the moon fell upon it, glinted dully like a row of filed teeth, like a gaping lithograph of a charging shark.

“Guess so. Say, I’m going to fade out. Stall her off some way, or run yourself would be better.” The niece rose hurriedly. “So long. See you to-m— Oh, you coming too?”

They stepped behind the companionway housing and flattened themselves against it, listening to Mrs. Maurier’s fretful prowling, and clutching Pete’s hand for caution the niece craned her head around the corner. “There’s Dorothy, too,” she whispered and she withdrew her head and they flattened themselves closer yet, clutching hands, while the two searchers passed, pausing to peer into every obscurity.

But they went on, finally, passing from sight, and the niece wriggled her fingers free and moved, and moving found that she had turned into Pete’s arm and against his dark shape and the reckless angle of his hat topping it.

An interval like that between two fencers ere they engage, then Pete’s arm moved with confidence and his other arm came about her shoulders with a technique that was forcing her face upward. She was so still that he stopped again in a momentary flagging of confidence, and out of this lull a hard elbow came without force but steadily under his chin. “Try it on your saxophone, Pete,” she told him without alarm.

His hand moved again and caught her wrist, but she held her elbow jammed against his windpipe, increasing the pressure as he tried to remove her arm, their bodies taut against each other and without motion. Some one approached again and he released her, but before they could dodge again around the corner Miss Jameson saw them.

“Who is that?” she said in her high humorless voice. She drew nearer, peering. “Oh, I recognize Pete’s hat. Mrs. Maurier wants you.” She peered at them suspiciously. “What are you folks doing here?”

“Hiding from Aunt Pat,” the niece answered. “What’s she going to make us do, now?”

“Why . . . nothing. She—we ought to be more sociable. Don’t you think so? We never are all together, you know. Anyway, she wants to see Pete. Aren’t you coming too?”

“I’m going to bed. Pete can go if he wants to risk it, though.” She turned away. Miss Jameson put her hand on Pete’s sleeve.

“You don’t mind if I take Pete, then?” she persisted intensely.

“I don’t if he don’t,” the niece replied. She went on. “Good night.”

“That child ought to be spanked,” Miss Jameson said viciously. She slid her hand through Pete’s elbow. “Come on, Pete.”

.          .          .          .          .          .          .

The niece stood and rubbed one bare sole against the other shin, hearing their footsteps retreating toward the lights and the fatuous reiteration of the victrola. She rubbed her foot rhythmically up and down her shin, gazing out upon the water where the moon had begun to spread her pallid and boneless hand. . . . Her foot ceased its motion and she remained motionless for a space. Then she stood on one leg and raised the other one. Under her fingers was a small, hard bump, slightly feverish. Gabriel’s pants, she whispered, they’ve found us again. But there was nothing for it except to wait until the tug came. “And finds a lot of picked bones,” she added aloud. She went on across the deck; at the stairs she stopped again.

It was David, standing there at the rail, his shirt blanching in the level moonlight, against the dark shoreline. She went over beside him, silent on her bare feet.

“Hello, David,” she said quietly, putting her elbows on the rail beside his and hunching her shoulders and crossing her legs as his were. “This would be a good night to be on our mountain, looking down at the lake and the little boats all lighted up, wouldn’t it? I guess this time next summer we’ll be there, won’t we? And lots of other places, where you went to. You know nice things, don’t you? When we come back, I’ll know nice things, too.” She gazed downward upon the dark, ceaseless water. It was never still, never the same, and on it moonlight was broken into little fleeting silver wings rising and falling and changing.

“Wish I were in it,” she said, “swimming around in the moonlight. . . . You won’t forget about in the morning, will you?” No, he told her watching her crossed thin arms and the cropped crown of her head. “Say,” she looked up at him, “I tell you what: let’s go in to-night.”

“Now?”

“When the moon gets up more. Aunt Pat wouldn’t let me go now, anyway. But about twelve, when they’ve gone to bed. What do you say?” He looked at her, looked at her in such a strange fashion that she said sharply: “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he answered at last.

“Well, I’ll meet you about twelve o’clock, then. I’ll get Gus’ bathing suit for you. Don’t forget, now.”

“No,” he repeated. And when she reached the stairs and looked back at him he was still watching her in that strange manner. But she didn’t puzzle over it long.