th all his heart. Many, though they dared
not say so, secretly wished that some evil might befall Philip, and that
he might soon die childless, since he had destroyed his only son and
only heir, and that Don John might be King in his stead. The Princess of
Eboli and Perez knew well enough that their plan would be popular, if
they could ever bring it to maturity.

The music swelled and softened, and rose again in those swaying strains
that inspire an irresistible bodily longing for rhythmical motion, and
which have infinite power to call up all manner of thoughts, passionate,
gentle, hopeful, regretful, by turns. In the middle of the hall, more
than a hundred dancers moved, swayed, and glided in time with the sound,
changed places, and touched hands in the measure, tripped forward and
back and sideways, and met and parted again without pause, the colours
of their dresses mingling to rich unknown hues in the soft candlelight,
as the figure brought many together, and separating into a hundred
elements again, when the next steps scattered them again; the jewels in
the women's hair, the clasps of diamonds and precious stones at throat,
and shoulder, and waist, all moved with an intricate motion, in orbits
that crossed and recrossed in the tinted sea of silk, and flashed all at
once, as the returning burden of the music brought the dancers to stand
and turn at the same beat of the measure. Yet it was all unlike the
square dancing of these days, which is either no dancing at all, but a
disorderly walk, or else is so stiffly regular and awkward that it makes
one think of a squad of recruits exercising on the drill ground. There
was not a motion, then, that lacked grace, or ease, or a certain purpose
of beauty, nor any, perhaps, that was not a phrase in the allegory of
love, from which all dancing is, and was, and always must be, drawn.
Swift, slow, by turns, now languorous, now passionate, now full of
delicious regret, singing love's triumph, breathing love's fire, sighing
in love's despair, the dance and its music were one, so was sight
intermingled with sound, and motion a part of both. And at each pause,
lips parted and glance sought glance in the light, while hearts found
words in the music that answered the language of love. Men laugh at
dancing and love it, and women, too, and no one can tell where its charm
is, but few have not felt it, or longed to feel it, and its beginnings
are very far away in primeval humanity, beyon