Lane shut his eyes during the next number and listened without the disconcerting spectacle in his sight.  He put all the intensity of which he was capable into his attention.  His knowledge of music was not extensive, but on the other hand it was enough to enable him to analyze this jazz.  Neither music nor ragtime, it seemed utterly barbarian in character.  It appealed only to primitive, physical, sensual instincts.  It could not be danced to sanely and gracefully.  When he opened his eyes again, to see once more the disorder of dancers in spirit and action, he seemed to have his analysis absolutely verified.

These dances were short, the encores very brief, and the intermissions long.  Perhaps the dancers needed to get their breath and rearrange their apparel.

After this number, Lane left Blair talking to friends, and made his way across the hall to where he espied Lorna.  She did not see him.  She looked ashamed, hurt, almost sullen.  Her young friend, Harry, was bending over talking earnestly.  Lane caught the words:  “Lorna dear, that Swann’s only stringing you—­rushing you on the sly.  He won’t dance with you here—­not while he’s with that swell crowd.”

“It’s a lie,” burst out Lorna.  She was almost in tears.

Lane took her arm, making her start.

“Well, kids, you’re having some time, aren’t you,” he said, cheerfully.

“Sure—­are,” gulped Harry.

Lorna repressed her grief, but not her sullen resentment.

Lane pretended not to notice anything unusual, and after a few casual remarks and queries he left them.  Strolling from place to place, mingling with the gay groups, in the more secluded alcoves and recesses where couples appeared, oblivious to eyes, in the check room where a sign read:  “check your corsets,” out in the wide landing where the stairway came up, Lane passed, missing little that might have been seen or heard.  He did not mind that two of the chaperones stared at him in supercilious curiosity, as if speculating on a possible faux pas of his at this dance.  Both boys and girls he had met since his return to Middleville, and some he had known before, encountered him face to face, and cut him dead.  He heard sarcastic remarks.  He was an outsider, a “dead one,” a “has been” and a “lemon.”  But Margaret was gracious to him, and Flossie Dickerson made no bones of her regard.  Dorothy, he was relieved and glad to see, was not present.

Lane had no particular object in mind.  He just wanted to rub elbows with this throng of young people.  This was the joy of life he had imagined he had missed while in France.  How much vain longing!  He had missed nothing.  He had boundlessly gained.

Out on this floor a railing ran round the curve of the stairway.  Girls were sitting on it, smoking cigarettes, and kicking their slipper-shod feet.  Their partners were lounging close.  Lane passed by, and walking to a window in the shadow he stood there.  Presently one of the boys threw away his cigarette and said:  “Come on, Ironsides.  I gotta dance.  You’re a rotten dancer, but I love you.”