The Restless Sex

She threatened Harry Belter with the flat of her palm, warning him indignantly when he attempted a two-step, by violence; she closed her ears to Badger Spink, who danced with rage in his goat-skins; she waved away Verne in all his Egyptian splendour; she let her grey eyes rest in an insolent stare at two of Belter's dryads who encircled Cleland's waist with avowed intent to make him their prisoner and dedicate him to vocal praise of the vine.

Then there was a faint clash and flash of iridescence, and the Prince Siddhartha confronted her, golden-eyed, golden-skinned, golden-haired, magnificent in his golden vestments.

"Oswald!" she cried. "Oh, I am glad. Jim! You and Oswald will be friends, won't you? You're such dears – you simply must like each other!"

They shook hands, looking with curious intentness at each other.

"I've always liked you, Cleland," said Grismer gracefully. "I don't think you ever cared for me very much, but I wish you might."

"I have found you – agreeable, Grismer. We were friendly at school and college together – "

"I hope our friendliness may continue."

"I – hope so."

Grismer smiled:

"Drop in whenever you care to, Cleland, and talk things over. We've a lot to say to each other, I think."

"Thanks." … He looked hard at Grismer. "All right; I'll do it."

Grismer nodded:

"I've a kennel of sorts in Bleecker Street. But you might be interested in one or two things I'm working on. You see," he added with careless good humour, "I'm obliged to work, now."

Cleland said in a low voice:

"I'm sorry things went wrong with you."

"Oh, they didn't. It was quite all right, Cleland. I really don't mind. Will you really drop in some day soon?"

"Yes."

Dancing began again. Grismer stepped back with the easy, graceful courtesy that became him, conceding Stephanie to Cleland as a matter of course; and the latter, who had been ready to claim her, found himself disarmed in advance.

"Is it Grismer's dance, Steve?" he asked.

"I promised him. But, Jim, I'm afraid to let you go – "

They all laughed, and she added:

"When a girl gets a man back after three long years, is it astonishing that she keeps tight hold of him?"

"You'd better dance with her, Cleland," said Grismer, smiling.

But Cleland could not accept a gift from this man, and he surrendered her with sufficient grace.

"Jim!" she said frankly. "You're not going after that dryad, are you? She's exceedingly common and quite shamelessly under-dressed. Shall I introduce you to a nice girl – or do you know a sufficient number?"

"You know," he said, laughing, "that I ought to play my part of Fourth Caliph and go and capture a pretty widow – "

"What!"

"Certainly," he said tranquilly; "didn't Ali take prisoner Ayesha, the youthful widow of Mohammed? I'll look about while you're dancing – "

"I don't wish you to!" she exclaimed, half vexed, half laughing. "Oswald, does he mean it?"

"He looks as though he does," replied Grismer, amused. "There's a Goddess of Night over there, Cleland – very pretty and very unconcealed under a cloud of spangled stars – "

"Oswald! I don't wish him to! Jim! Listen to me, please – !" for he had already started toward the little brunette Goddess of Night. "We have box seven! Please remember. I shall wait for you!"

"Right!" he nodded, now intently bent on displeasing her; a little excited, too, by her solicitude, yet sullenly understanding that it sprang from no deeper emotion than her youthful heart had yet betrayed for him. No woman ever let a man go willingly, whether kin or lover – whether she had use for him or not.

Stephanie, managing to keep him in view among the dancers, saw the little Goddess of Night, with her impudent up-tilted nose, floating amid her scandalously diaphanous draperies in his arms through a dreamy tango, farther and farther away from her.

Things went wrong with her, too; she dropped her emerald girdle and several of the paste stones rolled away; the silk of her body-vest ripped, revealing the snowy skin, and she had to knot her gold sari higher. Then the jewelled thong of her left sandal snapped and she lost it for a moment.

"The devil!" she said, slipping her bare foot into it and half skating toward the nearest lower-tier box.

"There he is over there," remarked Grismer, indicating a regulation Mephistopheles, wearing a blood-red jerkin laced with a wealth of superfluous points. "Wait; I'll borrow a lace of him."

The devil was polite and had no objection to being despoiled; and Grismer came back with a chamois thong and mended her sandal for her while she sat in their box and watched the tumult surging below.

He chatted gaily with her for a while, leaning there on the box's edge beside her, but Stephanie had become smilingly inattentive and preoccupied, and he watched her in silence, now, curiously, a little perplexed by her preoccupation. For it was most unusual for her to betray inattention when with him. It was not like her. He could not remember her ever being visibly uninterested in him – ever displaying preoccupation or indifference when in his company.

However, the excitement of seeing her brother again so unexpectedly accounted for it no doubt.

The excitement and pleasure of seeing her —brother! … A slight consciousness of the fact that there was no actual kinship between this girl and Cleland passed through his mind without disturbing his tranquillity. He merely happened to think of it… He happened to recollect it; that was all.

"Stephanie?"

"Yes."

"Shall we sit out this dance? Your sandal string will hold."

"I don't know," she said. "Who is that dancing with Helen? Over there to the left – "

"I see her. I don't know – oh, yes – it's Phil Grayson."

"Is it? I wonder where Jim went with that woman! … I'm horribly thirsty, Oswald."

"Shall we have some supper?"

"Where is it? Oh, down there! What a stuffy place! It's too awful. Couldn't you get something here?"

He managed to bribe one perspiring and distracted waiter, and after a long while he brought a tray towering with salads, ices and bottles.

Helen and Philip Grayson came back and the former immediately revealed a healthy appetite.