ats off now, to reduce the temperature of
the performers,--more refreshments, more dances,--dances with
broomsticks held between the partners, over which they slipped and
skipped to the tune of caustic comments by the onlookers,--dances
between caps laid on the floor and which must on no account be touched
by the dancers. And always the cry to the musician of the moment
was,--"Faster! Faster!"--and the race between Orpheus and
Terpsichore--between the music and the flying feet, grew still more
fast and furious.

Now Charles Svendt, as we know, did not look like a dancing man, but
dancing was one of the superficial accomplishments in which he
excelled.

Miss Penny, also, through much experience with girls, was lighter of
foot than she looked.

They stood for a time watching, and presently both their feet were
tapping to the quickstep of the rest.

"Let's have a shot at it," said Charles. "Will you?" and he looked
down at her.

"I'd love to," and in a moment they were whirling in the circle with
the rest, but with a grace that none there could rival,--gallant
dancers as the Sark boys and girls are.

"Delightful!" murmured Charles Svendt. "You dance like an angel, and
we fit splendidly," and Hennie Penny found a man's arm about her
decidedly and delightfully more inspiriting than all the arms of all
the schoolgirls in the world, and danced as she had never danced
before.

So swift and light and smooth and graceful was their flight that
before long the rest tailed off and all stood propped against the
walls to watch them.

"We've got the floor all to ourselves," murmured Miss Penny at last,
as she woke to the fact.

"We've licked them into fits on their own ground," he laughed in her
ear. "You can dance and no mistake. It's a treat to dance with a
really good dancer."

"I think we ought to stop. We're stopping their fun," said Hennie
Penny, and when he led her to a seat the rest of the room all clapped
their enjoyment.

Graeme and Margaret danced a round or two to endorse the festivities,
but they were not in it with Pixley and Hennie Penny, and they soon
dropped out and clapped heartily with the rest.

When Charles Svendt, later on, suggested another dance, Miss Penny
bade him go and dance with one of the Sark girls.

"But I don't want to dance with any of them. Besides, I don't know any
of 'em, and I couldn't talk to her if I did."

"Oh yes, you can. They all speak English."

"Do they now? It don't