im there was the silken coolness of her
curls, for her the fever of his hand upon her waist.

During the interval between the sixth and seventh waltzes, Maurice,
breathless at the memory of their perfect accord, said:

"I wonder if Paolo and Francesca enjoy swooning together on the winds of
hell. Great Scott! as if one wouldn't prefer the seventh circle to
bathing in pools of light with a blessed damosel. I'm surprised at
Rosetti."

"Who's she?"

"The blessed damosel?"

"No--Rose Etty."

"Oh, Jenny, don't make me laugh."

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about."

"I was speculating. Hark! They're playing the Eton Boating Song. Come
along. We mustn't miss a bar of it."

In the scent of frangipani and jicky and phulnana the familiar tune
became queerly exotic. The melody, charged with regret for summer elms
and the sounds of playing-fields, full of the vanished laughter of
boyhood, held now the heart of romantic passion. It spoke of regret for
the present rather than the past and, as it reveled in the lapse of
moments, gave expression to the dazzling swiftness of such a night in a
complaint for flying glances, sighs and happy words lost in their very
utterance.

"Heart of hearts," whispered Maurice in the swirl of the dance.

"Oh, Maurice, I do love you," she sighed.

Now the moments fled faster as the beat quickened for the climax of the
dance. Maurice held Jenny closer than before, sweeping her on through a
mist of blurred lights in which her eyes stood out clear as jewels from
the pallor of her face. Round the room they went, round and round,
faster and faster. Jenny was now dead white. Her lips were parted
slightly, her fingers strained at Maurice's sleeve. He, with flushed
cheeks, wore elation all about him. No dream could have held the
multitude of imaginations that thronged their minds; and when it seemed
that life must end in the sharpness of an ecstasy that could never be
recorded in mortality, the music stopped. There was a sound of many
footsteps leaving the ballroom. Jenny leaned on Maurice's arm.

"You're tired," he said. "Jolly good dance that?"

"Wasn't it glorious? Oh, Maurice, it was lovely."

"Come and sit in the box when you've had some champagne, and I'll dance
with the girls while you're resting. Shall I?"

She nodded.

Presently Maurice was tearing round the room with Maudie, both of them
laughing very loudly, while Jenny sat back in a faded arm-chair thinking
of the old