in time to the music. A look of joyous invitation had come
into his eyes--an expression that was almost coquettish, like the
expression of a child who has conceived some lively, innocent design of
which he thinks that no one knows except himself. His young figure surely
quivered with a passion of merry mischief which was communicated to his
companions. In it there began to flame a spirit that suggested undying
youth. Even before they began to dance the boys were transformed. If they
had ever known cares those cares had fled, for in the breasts of those
who can really dance the tarantella there is no room for the smallest
sorrow, in their hearts no place for the most minute regret, anxiety, or
wonder, when the rapture of the measure is upon them. Away goes
everything but the pagan joy of life, the pagan ecstasy of swift
movement, and the leaping blood that is quick as the motes in a sunray
falling from a southern sky. Delarey began to smile as he watched them,
and their expression was reflected in his eyes. Hermione glanced at him
and thought what a boy he looked. His eyes made her feel almost as if
she were sitting with a child.

The mischief, the coquettish joy of the boys increased. They snapped
their fingers more loudly, swayed their bodies, poised themselves first
on one foot, then on the other, then abruptly, and with a wildness that
was like the sudden crash of all the instruments in an orchestra breaking
in upon the melody of a solitary flute, burst into the full frenzy of the
dance. And in the dance each seemed to be sportively creative, ruled by
his own sweet will.

"That's why I love the tarantella more than any other dance," Hermione
murmured to her husband, "because it seems to be the invention of the
moment, as if they were wild with joy and had to show it somehow, and
showed it beautifully by dancing. Look at Gaspare now."

With his hands held high above his head, and linked together, Gaspare was
springing into the air, as if propelled by one of those boards which are
used by acrobats in circuses for leaping over horses. He had thrown off
his hat, and his low-growing hair, which was rather long on the forehead,
moved as he sprang upward, as if his excitement, penetrating through
every nerve in his body, had filled it with electricity. While Hermione
watched him she almost expected to see its golden tufts give off sparks
in response to the sparkling radiance that flashed from his laughing
eyes. For in al