ough.

The one or two persons who had been introduced to me, on going to join
the dance, also expressed regret. Even Mrs. Hollenbeck came up, and said
how sorry she was: she had supposed I danced.

But they all went away, and I was left by one of the furthest windows
with a tiresome old man, who didn't dance either, because his legs
weren't strong enough, and who talked and talked till I asked him not
to; which he didn't seem to like. But to have to talk, with the noise of
the music, and the stir, of the dancing, and the whirl that is always
going on in such a room, is penance. I told him it made my head ache,
and besides I couldn't hear, and so at last he went away, and I was
left alone.

Sometimes in pauses of the dance Richard came up to me, and sometimes
Kilian; but it had the effect of making me more uncomfortable, for it
made everybody turn and look at me. Bye and bye I stole away and went on
the piazza, and looked in where no one could see me. I could not go away
entirely, for I was fascinated by the dance. I longed so to be dancing,
and had such bitter feelings because I never had been taught. After I
left the room, I could see Richard was uncomfortable; he looked often at
the door, and was not very attentive to his partner. No one else seemed
to miss me. Mr. Langenau talked constantly to Miss Lowder, with whom he
had been dancing, and never looked once toward where I had been sitting.
A long time after, when they had been dancing--hours it seemed to
me--Miss Lowder seemed to feel faint or tired, and Mr. Langenau came out
with her, and took her up-stairs to the dressing-room.

Ashamed to be seen looking in at the window, I ran into the library and
sat down. There was a student's lamp upon the table, but the room had no
other light. I sat leaning back in a large chair by the table, with my
bouquet in my lap, buttoning and unbuttoning absently my long white
gloves. In a moment I heard Mr. Langenau come down-stairs alone: he had
left Miss Lowder in the dressing-room to rest there: he came directly
toward the library.

He came half-way in the door, then paused. "May I speak to you?" he said
slowly, fixing his eyes on mine. "I seem to be the only one who is
forbidden, of those who have offended you and of those who have not."

"No one has said what you have," I said very faintly.

In an instant he was standing beside me, with one hand resting on the
table.

"Will you listen to me," he said, bending a little