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I’ve a pair of arms to hug and hold,

But nobody’s using them now .. .

Once he had walked toward Sheridan Road with Lucy, and she had sung and... But this was different now and, oh, hell with dragging up memories!

“Nice night out,” he said.

“Uh huh,” Catherine muttered thoughtfully.

“Too nice a night to waste,” he said, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it vigorously.

“That’s why I thought we might take a walk over to the park. It might be nice there.”

“You like nature,” she said reprovingly.

“Well, it would be nice there because it is a nice night out.”

“And isn’t that all so awfully just too nice for words that it’s nice,” she mimicked.

“Well, don’t you think... oh, can it,” he said in growing confusion.

“I think you’re perfectly right,” she laughed.

“How do you feel?” he asked as they neared Stony Island.

“Oh, I feel all right.”

They turned and walked aimlessly north along Stony Island Avenue, past stores and buildings and filling stations, with the sound of automobile tires swishing persistently.

“Well?”

“You men,” she smiled.

“Why... what do you mean?”

“You want to go to Jackson Park and enjoy nature.”

“Well, isn’t it natural?” he said aggressively, and she blushed.

He shot his cigarette butt into the street and looked at a couple drifting along in front of him.

“Now, aren’t you sorry you were so vulgar?”

“I wasn’t vulgar,” he said with embarrassment.

“Oh, no,” she said, linking his arm. “Sometimes you’re so like a boy.”

“Well...” he stopped talking.

“Yes, well, it’s a nice night, isn’t it?”

“Well, it is.”

“Beautiful night.”

“And you’re just trying to razz me.”

“Did you just make that discovery, you sweet old ... pumpkin.”

“Anyway, Kid, what’ll we do?”

“I know what we shan’t do.”

“What?”

“Go to the park and catch cold on the damp grass finding out that nature is grand... Go on, you’re making me blush.”

“I never even mentioned that,” Studs self-righteously protested.

“I know. But I’m not going to take any chances with you. I love you too much to be trusting you on a dark night in the park.”

“You’re putting thoughts into my head.”

“Well, take them out, Mr. Tarzan,” she said, shamming irritation.

“What did you put them in for?”

“You’re so innocent.”

“Yes... I mean no.”

“William Lonigan, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“There’s no reason for a guy to be ashamed of liking a girl like you.”

“You’re so sweet,” she said, squeezing his elbow.

“Well, I know how you can make yourself even more sweet.”

“But, darling, you know it’s not right going on like this before we’re married, and anyway I can’t because... well, I’m sick.”

“Yes,” he said, striving to give the impression that he knew more than he actually did.

He looked at her, and tried to shutter the unwanted disgust out of his mind and to convince himself that after all it was only something that was natural. He wished he were alone. “I know what I’d like to do.”

“What?” he asked, masking that persistent disgust.

“Go to a dance marathon.”

“Doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.”

“Have you ever seen one?”

“Nope.”

“Well, then, let’s find out what they’re like. A girl at our office goes to all of them, and she talks about nothing else, and it has made me want to find out what they’re like.”

“Let’s take in a show instead.”

“We can just try a dance marathon first to see what they’re like, and if we don’t like it, we can leave.”

“Well, why not try one some other night?”

“Hurry, here comes our car.”

Reluctantly he crossed to catch a surface car.

II

“Now what do we do?” Studs asked grumpily.

“Watch.”

“Well, that’s not my idea of spending a roistering evening, sitting here and watching a bunch of damn fools sleeping on their feet.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” Catherine whispered as a broad and burly woman with Slavic features turned an angry face on them from the bench below.

They sat on the left-hand side of a large dance hall converted into an amphitheater. Below them, through a thick haze of cigarette smoke, was a large polished rectangle of dance