The Early Ayn Rand

Laury entered his apartment that evening with a scowl on his face, darker than printing ink. He threw the four boxes in the middle of the room, without answering Jinx's greeting, and slumped down on the sofa, turning his back to her.

"O-oh! Isn't that sweet of you!" Jinx cried, throwing herself eagerly on the packages. In a second the living-room floor looked like a combination salad made out of a woman's boudoir after an earthquake. And Jinx sat on the carpet in the middle of the waves of lace and silk, enthusiastically examining her new possessions.

"My goodness! What's this?" she cried suddenly.

And she pulled out the nightgown that Laury had chosen for her. As his excuse it must be said that he had no way of knowing what girls wear at night and so he had chosen the most decent-looking gown in the store, which was an immense thing of heavy flannel with long sleeves, high collar, and little pockets, a dignified garment to which his grandmother could have found no objection.

"What do you think this is, an Eskimo raincoat?" Jinx asked indignantly, waving the gown before Laury's eyes.

"Well, but..." he muttered, embarrassed.

"Have you ever seen a woman in a nightgown like that?" she thundered.

"No, I haven't!" he answered sharply.

His face was dark and indifferent. And it did not change when, after carrying her new things away, Jinx emerged suddenly from the kitchen, wearing one of her new dresses.

It was the flame-red chiffon. The light red mist clung to her slim waist tightly like a bathing suit and then flowed down to her knees in wide waves that floated around her like trembling tongues of fire. She stood immobile, her head thrown back. Her hair looked tornado-blown. Her lips were parted, glistening like wet petals; and her eyes sparkled strangely with a joyous, intense, and eager glitter.

"Do you like it?" she asked softly.

"Yes!" he threw indifferently, without looking at her.

She laughed. She turned on the victrola, a thundering jazz record.

"Let's dance!" she invited.

Laury turned to her abruptly.

"What did you write that second postscript for?" he asked.

"Oh! Wasn't that clever?" she laughed, dancing all over the room, her body shaking with the gracefully convulsive jerks of a fox-trot. "You're not angry, are you — Danny?"

"Please stop that dancing, Miss Winford! Do you want the neighbors to hear you?"

"Don't call me Miss Winford!"

"What shall I call you? And leave that ukulele alone! You'll wake up the whole house, Miss Winford!"

"My name's Jinx!"

"No wonder!"

She laughed again. With one graceful leap she landed on her knees at his feet and her strong little hands turned his head towards her.

"Now, Danny," she whispered tenderly, her hair brushing his chin, her laughing eyes fixed straight on his, "can't you smile, just once?"

He did not want to, but he could not help it and he smiled. When Laury smiled he had little dimples playing on his cheeks, gay like flickers of light, and in his eyes — dancing sparks, mischievous like dimples. And the strange, eager, almost hungry look glittered again in Jinx's eyes.

She pulled him up to his feet and threw his arms around her and pushed him into the gay rhythm of a fox-trot. He laughed wholeheartedly and obeyed. They glided, swaying, over the room. The victrola screamed joyously and in the buoyant roar of the jazz orchestra some instrument knocked dryly, rhythmically, like a cracking whip spurring the sounds to dance. Laury's hands clasped her slim little body, the tremulous red cloud with the faint, sweet perfume. And Jinx pressed herself to him, closer, closer.

They danced until their feet could move no longer and then they both fell on the sofa, in the cozy tent of the window curtains that Jinx had arranged. She looked at him with smiling, encouraging, impatient eyes.

"You're a wonderful dancer, Miss Winford," he said.

"Thanks! So are you," she answered indifferently.

"Are you tired?"

"No!" she threw coldly.

They were silent for several minutes.

"Have you ever kidnapped a girl before?" she asked suddenly.

"Now, just why do you want to know that?" he inquired.

"Oh, I just wonder... I just wonder if you ever kiss the girls who are your prisoners."

"You don't have to be afraid of that!" he answered, with a sincere indignation.

And he could not quite make out what the look that she gave him meant...

They danced again; then, he played the ukulele and sang to her the songs he knew; and she sang the ones he didn't know; and they sang together; and she taught him a new dance; and she thought that Lizzie Chatterton had certainly missed something having never been kidnapped.

When he finally stretched himself on his mountainous bed in the kitchen and turned off the light, Laury somehow did not feel like sleeping and the sweet perfume lingered with him, as though breathing from the other room, and he looked at the closed door.

"Oh!... Danny!!" a frightened voice screamed in the living room.