Now there rattled out a challenge of drums; loud music struck upon the air.  Starting instantly to go to Julia, Noble’s left leg first received the electric impulse and crossed his laggard right; but he was no pacer, and thus stumbled upon himself and plunged.  Still convulsive, he came headlong before her, and was the only person near who remained unaware that his dispersal of an intervening group had the appearance of extreme unconventionality.  Noble knew nothing except that this was his dance with Her.

Then heaven played with him.  She came close and touched him exquisitely.  She placed a lovely hand upon his shoulder, her other lovely cool hand in one of his.  The air filled with bursting stars.

They danced.

Noble was conscious of her within his clasping arm, but conscious of her as nothing human.  The fluffy white bodice pressed by his hand seemed to be that of some angel doll; the charming shoulder that sometimes touched his was made of a divine mist.  Only the pretty head, close to his, was actual; the black-sapphire eyes gave him a little blue-black glance, now and then, and seemed to laugh.

In truth, they did, though Julia’s lips remained demure.  So far as Noble was able to comprehend what he was doing, he was floating rhythmically to a faint, far music; but he was almost unconscious, especially from the knees down.  But to the eye of observers incapable of perceiving that Noble was floating, it appeared that he was out of step most of the time, and danced rather hoppingly.  However, these mannerisms were no novelty with him, and it cannot be denied that girls at dances usually hurried impulsively away to speak to somebody when they saw him coming.  One such creature even went so far as to whisper to Julia now, during a collision:  “How’d you get caught?”

Julia was loyal; she gave no sign of comprehension, but valiantly swung onward with Noble, bumped and bumping everywhere, in spite of the most extraordinary and graceful dexterity on her part.

“That’s one reason she’s such a terrible belle,” a damsel whispered to another.

“What is?”

“The way she’ll be just as nice to anybody like Noble Dill as she is to anybody,” said the first.  “Look at her now:  she won’t laugh at him a bit, though everybody else is.”

“Well, I wouldn’t laugh either,” said the other.  “Not in Julia’s position.  I’d be too busy being afraid.”

“What of?”

“Of getting a sprained ankle!”

It is well that telepathy remains, as a science, lethargic.  Speculation sets before us the prospect of a Life Beyond in which every thought is communicated without the intervention of speech:  a state wherein all neighbours and neighbourhoods would promptly be dispersed and few friendships long endure, one fears.  If to Noble Dill’s active consciousness had penetrated merely the things thought about him and his dancing, in this one short period of time before the music for that dance stopped, he might easily have been understood if he had hurried forth, obtained explosives, and blown up the place, himself indeed included.  As matters providentially were in reality, when the music stopped he stood confounded:  he thought the dance had just begun.