“Oh, she is,” assented his mother eagerly.  “I always tell her that her disposition is worth a fortune; and she has a very good figure too.  But, of course, a pretty face is the most important thing before marriage and the least important thing afterward,” she added shrewdly, as she left him at his door.

In a dream he dressed himself and went down to the dining-room; in a dream he sat through the slow ceremonious supper; in a dream he got into his father’s car; and in a dream he stopped for Margaret and drove on again with her fragrant presence beside him.  When he entered the glaring, profusely decorated house of the Harrisons, he felt that he was still only half awake to the actuality.

The May night was as warm as summer, and swinging garlands of ferns and peonies concealed electric fans which were suspended from the ceiling.  In the midst of the strong wind of the whirring fans, the dancers in the two long drawing-rooms appeared to be blown violently in circles and eddies, like coloured leaves in a high wind.  For a few minutes after Stephen had entered, the rooms seemed to him merely a brilliant haze, where the revolving figures appeared and vanished like the colours of a kaleidoscope.  Near the door he became aware of the resplendent form of his hostess, stationed appropriately against a background of peonies; and after she had greeted him with absent-minded cordiality, he passed with Margaret in the direction of the thundering sounds which came from the bank of ferns behind which the musicians were hidden.

“Shall we try this?” he shouted into Margaret’s ear.

She shook her head.  “It’s one of those horrid new things.”  Her high, clear tones pierced the din like the music of a flute.  “Let’s wait until they play something nice.  I hate jazz.”

She was looking very pretty in a dress like a white cloud, with garlands of tiny rosebuds on the skirt; and he thought, as he looked at her, that if she had only been a trifle less fastidious and refined, she might easily have won the reputation of a beauty.  Nothing but a delicate superiority to the age in which she had been born, stood in the way of her success.  Sixty years ago, in modest crinolines, she might have made history; and duels would probably have been fought for her favour.  But other times, other tastes, he reflected.

For the rest of the dance, they sat sedately between two bay-trees in green tubs that occupied a corner of the room.  Then “something nicer” started,—­a concession to Mrs. Harrison’s mother, who shared Margaret’s disapproval of jazz,—­and Stephen and Margaret drifted slowly out among the revolving couples.  After the third dance, relief appeared in the person of the young clergyman, who had come to look on; and leaving Margaret with him between the bay-trees, Stephen started eagerly to search for Patty where the dancers were thickest.