would realize that she--Tamara--was dancing with their wearer now! When
she laughed he put his arm around her once more and began dancing. This
time he held her rather closely, and suddenly as she laughed again to
herself provokingly, he clasped her tight.

"If you laugh like that I will kiss you--here in the room," he said.

Tamara stopped dead short. She blazed with anger.

"How dare you be so impertinent?" she said.

They were up in a corner; everyone's back was turned to them happily,
for in one second he had bent and kissed her neck. It was done with
such incredible swiftness and audacity that even had they been observed
it must only have looked as though he bent to pick up something she had
dropped. But the kiss burned into Tamara's flesh.

She could hardly keep the tears of outraged pride from her eyes.

"How dare you! How dare you!" she hissed. "Truly you are making me
ashamed of having let you speak to me last night!"

"Last night?" he said, while he forcibly drew her hand within his arm
and began walking toward the group of her friends. "Last night you were
afraid some should see me from the hotel, and to-night you dare me. Do
it once more and I will kiss your lips!"

Tamara went dead white; she felt as if the ground were sinking beneath
her feet; her knees trembled. In all her smooth, conventionally ordered
life she had never experienced such a strong emotion.