The main floor, big as an armory, airless as a tomb, swarmed with dancers.

After supper a red sateen Pierrette, quivering, teeth flashing beneath a sucy half-mask, bowed to a sateen Pierrot, whose face was as slim as a satyr’s and whose smile was as upturned as the eye-slits in his mask.

“Gee!  Charley, you look just like a devil in that costume—­all red, and your mouth squinted like that!”

“And you look just like a little red cherry, ready to bust.”

And they were off in the whirl of the dance, except that the close-packed dancers hemmed them in a swaying mob; and once she fell back against his shoulder, faint.

“Ain’t there a—­a up-stairs somewheres, Charley, where they got air?  All this jam and no windows open!  Gee! ain’t it hot?  Let’s go outside where it’s cool—­let’s.”

“There you go again!  No wonder you got a cold on you—­always wanting air on you!  Come, Sweetness; this ain’t hot.  Here, lemme show you the dip I get the girls crazy with.  One, two, three—­dip!  One, two, three—­dip!  Ugh!”

“Gee! ain’t it a jam, though?”

“One, two, three!”

“That’s swell, Charley!  Quit!  You mustn’t squeeze me like that till—­till you’ve asked me to be engaged, Charley.  We—­we ain’t engaged yet, are we, Charley?”

“Aw, what difference does that make?  You girls make me sick—­always wanting to know that.”

“It—­it makes a lot of difference, Charley.”

“There you go on that Amen talk again.  All right, then; I won’t squeeze you no more, stingy!”

Her step was suddenly less elastic and she lagged on his arm.  “I—­I never said you couldn’t, Charley.  Gee! ain’t you a great one to get mad so quick!  Touchy!  I only said not till we’re engaged.”

He skirted the crowd, guiding her skilfully.  “Stingy!  Stingy!  I know ’em that ain’t so stingy as you.”

“Charley!”

“What?”

“Aw, I’m ashamed to say it.”

“Listen!  They’re playing the new one—­’Up to Snuff!’ Faster!  Don’t make me drag you, kiddo.  Faster!”

They were suddenly in the center of the maze, as tight-packed as though an army had conspired to close round them.  She coughed, and in her effort of repression, coughed again.

“Charley, I—­honest, I—­I’m going to keel.  I—­I can’t stand it packed in here—­like this.”

She leaned to him, with the color drained out of her face; and the crowd of black and pink and red dominoes, gnomes gone mad, pressed, batted, surged.

“Look out, Sweetness!  Don’t give out in here!  They’ll crush us out.  ’Ain’t you got no nerve?  Here; don’t give out now!  Gee!  Watch out, there!  The lady’s sick.  Watch out!  Here; now sit down a minute and get your wind.”

He pressed her shoulders downward and she dropped whitely on a little camp-chair hidden underneath the balcony.

“I gotta get out, Charley; I gotta get out and get air.  I feel like I’m going to suffocate in here.  It’s this old cough takes the breath out of me.”