And it was well I did come to save Ruth Chester from a dancing death, for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down.  I felt sorry for Tom, for when he danced with me he could see her, and when he danced with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade’s arm.  I verily believe it was from being really rattled that he asked little Pet Buford to dance with him—­by mistake as it were.  After that if Pet breathed a single strain of music out of his arms I didn’t see it.  I knew that gone expression on his face and it made me feel so lonesome that I was more gracious to the judge than was exactly safe.  He dances just as magnificently as he exists in life and it is a kind of ceremonial to do it with him.  The boys all wore white flannels, and most of the men, but the judge was as formally dressed as he would have been in mid-winter, and I wondered if Alfred could be half as distinguished to look at.  I suppose my eyes must have been telling on me about how grand I thought he was looking because he—­well, I was rather relieved when one of the boys took me out of his arms for a good, long, swinging two-step.

And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it!  My heart beat time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so.  Miss Chester and I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in between times and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her.  Every pound I have melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her and I just can’t think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days now.  I put the thought from me and so let myself swing out into thoughtlessness with one of the boys.  And after that I really didn’t know with whom I was dancing, I began to get so intoxicated with it all.

I never heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance in their music than those did to-night.  They had just given us the most lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin.  Never in all my life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that gipsy’s strings.  It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow the first strain.

Just then somebody happened to take me from whomever I was with and I caught step and glided off the universe.  The strongest arms that I had felt that evening—­or ever—­held me and I didn’t have to look up to see who it was.  I don’t know why I knew but I did.  I wasn’t clasped so very close to him or left to float by myself an inch; I was just a part of him like the arms themselves or the hand that mine molded into.  And while that wonder-music teased and cajoled and mocked and rocked and sobbed and throbbed, I laid my cheek against his coat sleeve and gave myself away, I didn’t care to whom.