he ruinous cost--this bright fallacy, this fleeting chimera, this
delusive ecstasy, this shadow and counterfeit of bliss which the goddess
vouchsafed to her communicants.

* * * * *

So thick and confused was the crowd that Leonora and Arthur, having
inserted themselves into a corner near the west door, escaped the
notice of any of their friends. They were as solitary there as on the
landing outside. But Leonora saw quite near, in another corner, Ethel
talking to Fred Ryley; she noticed how awkward Fred looked in his new
dress-suit, and she liked him for his awkwardness; it seemed to her that
Ethel was very beautiful. Arthur pointed out Rose, who was standing up
with the lady member of the School Board. Then Leonora caught sight of
Millicent in the distance, handing her programme to the conductor of the
opera; she recalled the notorious boast of the conductor that he never
knowingly danced with a bad dancer, whatever her fascinations. Always
when they met at a ball the conductor would ask Leonora for a couple of
waltzes, and would lead her out with an air of saying to the company:
'Now see what fine dancing is!' Like herself, he danced with the
frigidity of a professor. She wondered whether Arthur could dance really
well.

The placard by the orchestra said, 'Extra.'

'Shall we?' Arthur whispered.

He made a way for her through the outer fringe of people to the middle
space where the couples were forming. Her last thoughts as she gave him
her hand were thoughts half-pitiful and half-scornful of John, David
Dain, and the doctor, brutishly content in the refreshment-room.

There stole out, troubling the expectant air, softly, alluringly,
invocatively, the first warning notes of that unique classic of the
ball-room, that extraordinary composition which more than any other work
of art unites all western nations in a common delight, which is adored
equally by profound musicians and by the lightest cocottes, and which,
unscathed and splendid, still miraculously survives the deadly ordeal of
eternal perfunctory reiterance: the masterpiece of Johann Strauss.

'Why,' Leonora exclaimed, her excitement straining impatiently in the
leash, 'The Blue Danube!'

He laughed, quietly gay.

While the chords, with tantalising pauses and deliberation, approached
the magic moment of the waltz itself, she was conscious that his hold of
her became firmer and more assertive, and she surrendered to an
ove