y disappointed. The extra was
over and soon the first dance would begin; with the second dance would
arrive the Prince and Rachel would have no talk with May at all. It was
too bad of May to be late. She had promised so faithfully--Ah! there she
was with her air of one confidently conducting a most difficult
campaign. She mounted the stairs like a general, gave Lady Adela the
tiniest of smiles, and was at Rachel's side.

That clasp of May's hand filled Rachel's body with confident happiness.
May's hardy self-control, her discipline derived from some stern old
Puritans, dim centuries away, was all waiting there at Rachel's service.

"How late you are!"

"Mother was such a time. And then we couldn't get a cab. How are you,
Rachel?"

"Dinner was terrible--all wrong. I hadn't a word to say to anyone. I'm
better now that you've come."

"Is the Prince here?"

"Yes. I'm dancing the next dance with him. The Princess was very kind
after dinner. Oh! May, dinner was a disaster, an absolute disaster!"

"Not nearly so bad as you thought, you may be sure. Things always seem
so much worse."

And now May had been discovered. Gentlemen young and old dangled their
programmes in front of her, were received, were dismissed. May had the
air of a general, sitting fiercely in his tent and receiving reports
from his officers as to the progress in the field. Confident young men
were instantly timid before her.

The first dance was over. Against the white splendour vivid colours were
flung and withdrawn. Threads and patterns crossed and recrossed, and
then presently the glittering floor was waste and deserted; on its
surface was reflected dark gold from the shining walls.

The second dance came, and with it the Prince. Rachel had now lost all
sense of the ball having been given in any way for herself. The dancing,
it comforted her to see, was not of the very best, and at once she found
that she had herself nothing to fear. The Prince danced well, and soon
she was lost to all sense of everything save the immediate joy of rhythm
and balance, and the perfect spontaneity of the music and her body's
acknowledgment of it.

When it came to an end, and they were sitting in a corner, somewhere, he
was a fat middle-aged man again, and she Rachel Beaminster, but she knew
now for what life was intended.

After that, for a long period, her dancers did not concern her. They
were there simply to supply her with that ecstasy of rhythm and
moveme