n hour ago she had
feared with such alarm, he perceived an element that was indeed foreign
to all things Beaminster. And this new attitude reminded him with
renewed sharpness that he could not now hope to hold the old Rachel with
the intimate affection that had been his before. She was slipping from
him--slipping ... even as he watched her, she was going.

She laid her hand upon his arm: "Uncle John, I'm a success! I am really.
I can dance, dance beautifully! I can put these young men in their
places. They're frightened!... really frightened."

"Of course--you're lovely--the biggest success there's ever been. But
what was the matter with you at dinner?"

"Yes. Wasn't that dreadful? Everything went wrong, and the only thing I
could think of was how glad grandmamma would be. I had a kind of
paralysis."

Uncle John nodded his head. "I know exactly what it's like."

"Well, I shall never let myself be so stupid again--never! I swear it!"
They sat in silence for some time, she, restless, straining towards the
music, he a little overcome by her happiness.

There was a pause between the dances and then the band began once more.

"Have you danced with Roddy Seddon yet?"

"No. What's he like?"

"Oh! he's nice--you'll like him."

"I don't expect to. He's a friend of grandmamma's. Hark! There's the
band again!... Come along, back we go!"

Smiling, radiant, she hung upon his arm. Afterwards, standing in a
doorway, he watched her.

He sighed. "What a selfish old pig I am!... But she'll never be mine
again."

IV

Uncle John held only for a moment Rachel's attention. No single person
now, but rather a gorgeous pattern that the whole evening was weaving
about her. She saw the lights, she heard the music, she felt the
movement of her body, she gathered through a haze of happiness the faces
of her uncles and Aunt Adela and others whom she knew, but now for the
first time in her life she knew what happiness, happiness without
thought, or doubt, or foreboding could be.

Thus it was that she came to Roddy Seddon, who was certainly enjoying
himself: this, however, was not the first ball of his life nor even, if
all the truth were known, his best. He had expected it to be solemn and
sedate--you could not hope to find here the jolly kind of dance that
they had had at the Menets', for instance, last week; that would not be
possible in a Beaminster household.

It was all, to be honest, a little old-fashioned. Things were mo