Already they were dancing in the hall upstairs; but not she, yet; and he stood leaning against the wall where she must pass.  Lonely and out of place he felt; as if everyone must know why he was there.  People stared, and he heard a girl ask:  “Who’s that against the wall with the hair and dark moustache?”—­and her partner murmuring his answer, and her voice again:  “Yes, he looks as if he were seeing sand and lions.”  For whom, then, did they take him?  Thank heaven!  They were all the usual sort.  There would be no one that he knew.  Suppose Johnny Dromore himself came with Nell!  He was to be back on Saturday!  What could he say, then?  How meet those doubting, knowing eyes, goggling with the fixed philosophy that a man has but one use for woman?  God! and it would be true!  For a moment he was on the point of getting his coat and hat, and sneaking away.  That would mean not seeing her till Monday; and he stood his ground.  But after to-night there must be no more such risks—­their meetings must be wisely planned, must sink underground.  And then he saw her at the foot of the stairs in a dress of a shell-pink colour, with one of his flowers in her light-brown hair and the others tied to the handle of a tiny fan.  How self-possessed she looked, as if this were indeed her native element—­her neck and arms bare, her cheeks a deep soft pink, her eyes quickly turning here and there.  She began mounting the stairs, and saw him.  Was ever anything so lovely as she looked just then?  Behind her he marked Oliver, and a tall girl with red hair, and another young man.  He moved deliberately to the top of the stairs on the wall side, so that from behind they should not see her face when she greeted him.  She put the little fan with the flowers to her lips; and, holding out her hand, said, quick and low: 

“The fourth, it’s a polka; we’ll sit out, won’t we?”

Then swaying a little, so that her hair and the flower in it almost touched his face, she passed, and there in her stead stood Oliver.

Lennan had expected one of his old insolent looks, but the young man’s face was eager and quite friendly.

“It was awfully good of you to come, Mr. Lennan.  Is Mrs. Lennan—­”

And Lennan murmured: 

“She wasn’t able; she’s not quite—­” and could have sunk into the shining floor.  Youth with its touching confidence, its eager trust!  This was the way he was fulfilling his duty towards Youth!

When they had passed into the ballroom he went back to his position against the wall.  They were dancing Number Three; his time of waiting, then, was drawing to a close.  From where he stood he could not see the dancers—­no use to watch her go round in someone else’s arms.

Not a true waltz—­some French or Spanish pavement song played in waltz time; bizarre, pathetic, whirling after its own happiness.  That chase for happiness!  Well, life, with all its prizes and its possibilities, had nothing that quite satisfied—­save just the fleeting moments of passion!  Nothing else quite poignant enough to be called pure joy!  Or so it seemed to him.