The girl held back, but her admirers were in no mood for refusal, and the call became insistent.
Keith had gone to his room, but Wickersham was still there, and his champagne had flowed freely.

At length the girl yielded, and, after a few words with the host of the Windsor, she stepped forward and began to dance.
She danced in such a way that the applause made the brass chandeliers ring.

Even Wickersham, though he hated her, could not but admire her.
Keith, who had found it useless to try to sleep even in a remote corner of the hotel, returned just then, and whether it was that Terpsichore caught sight of him as she glanced his way, or that she caught sight of Wickersham's hostile face, she faltered and stopped suddenly.
Wickersham thought she had broken down, and, under the influence of the champagne, turned with a jeer to Plume.
"She can't dance, Plume," he called across to the editor, who was at some little distance in the crowd.
Those nearest to the dancer urged her to continue, but she had heard Wickersham's jeer, and she suddenly faced him and, pointing her long, bare arm toward him, said: "Put that man out, or I won't go on." Wickersham gave a laugh.

"Go on?
You can't go on," he said, trying to steady himself on his feet.

"You can't dance any more than a cow." He had never heard before the hum of an angry crowd.
"Throw him out! Fling him out of the window!" were the words he caught.
In a second a score of men were about him, and more than a score were rushing in his direction with a sound that brought him quickly to his senses.
Fortunately two men with cool heads were near by.