They kissed quickly. And then it was over. She was stepping back, and he was tingling from the contact. But that was all that there would ever be, he thought ruefully. She belonged to somebody else. He would just have to put the kiss into the old memory book, and let it go at that.

* * *

The dancers and those who just came to listen were in an ecstasy at the Lafayette. On the platform at the end of the dance floor, Bob McKay stood at the head of his orchestra, giving forth wild, bacchanalian music from his red-hot clarinet.

His face was flushed but joyous, and an unruly lock of blond hair shook back and forth across his forehead as his body from the waist up wove to and fro, back and forth in wild gyrations.

At a table near the dance floor, Lowry, Terry, and Max Dreiblatt, the owner of the Lafayette, sat listening attentively, each unconsciously beating time with his heels.

As the number reached the fever pitch that was the fore-runner of the abrupt ending that would follow, Dreiblatt shook his head in wonder.

Lowry grinned at him. “You like it real big, huh, Max?” he asked.

“Can those boys ever give out, boy, oh boy!” Dreiblatt said rhapsodically. “That boy McKay is the best in the business. Bar none. Bar absolutely none.”

“Looks like you’ve got a big turnout tonight to hear him, too.”

Dreiblatt nodded happily. “Yep. The house is packed, Ned. It just goes to show you what a little bit of publicity will do.”

“It works wonders, Max.”

“It sure does,” Dreiblatt agreed. “A guy goes to the can charged with murder. Then he gets out. So that packs them in to listen to him swing it. It makes them feel like they’re celebrities themselves to come here.”

“Also they know he’s good.”

Dreiblatt nodded. “He was always good, Ned. But a little publicity don’t hurt.”

The cornetist broke off the number on a half dozen nerve-shattering hot licks. McKay left the bandstand as the crowd cheered, and strode jauntily across the floor to the table.

Terry took his hand, gripping it tightly as though to make sure he would never ever go away from her.

“You were marvelous, Bob,” she said.

McKay smiled broadly. “Thanks, honey. Whew! I’m a little warm.”

As if on cue, a waiter came up with a tall glass, and placed it before McKay. Nodding gratefully, McKay picked the glass up and began sipping slowly.

“There’s something about lemonade,” he said. “So cool, refreshing. Like a pure mountain stream.”

Lowry laughed. “And chock full of vitamins.”

“I’m getting plenty of those these days,” he said. “Ask Terry.”

Dreiblatt rose. “Well, I got to see how things is goin’,” he said.

When he had gone, Lowry rose, too.

“I’ll be seeing you kids,” he said.

“Come up to the house in the morning and have breakfast with us,” Terry said.