came from complete mental satisfaction: she was enjoying her power over them—at these times when they needed her, they became humble and abject before her. Then, too, their warmth was nice on the cool nights during the late fall and winter.
The girls with whom Minnie associated discussed this quite frankly. In the summer they cared little for spooning. There were the pier dances, the trips to Coney, the walks in Central Park, the open-air skating rinks, with an occasional kiss, but not long hours given up to spooning. Their moral code was simple and understandable; there were physical laws which must be obeyed; inescapable punishment if these laws were ignored. Only once with Dan Sullivan had Minnie been aroused beyond the complacent contemplation of the effect she had upon the boys. She and Dan Sullivan, with four other couples, had gone for a boat ride up the Hudson River. They danced all day, ate their lunch under the trees while the boat was docked at a pier on the Jersey coast, sang to the accompaniment of accordions and harmonicas, played handball, had a cheap shore dinner aboard the boat; then they sat in couples on the deck, waiting for the moon to rise in cool glittering dignity. When the girls, secure in the deepening dusk, permitted the outstretched arms of the boys to find them, Minnie leaned back until her head rested upon Dan Sullivan's breast. His lips found hers and they kissed long and fervently. It seemed as if her heart had lifted and was suddenly detached from its moorings. An ecstasy which she knew only as pain raced through her. She clung to Dan and kissed him with feverish haste, as if she dared lose no time—in a few seconds this terrifying but exquisite joy might be gone forever.
