I made no answer, but placed my arm round her waist and stood ready to begin.  I avoided looking at her as much as possible, for it was growing more and more difficult with each moment that passed to hold the mastery over myself.  I was consumed between hate and love.  Yes, love!—­of an evil kind, I own, and in which there was no shred of reverence—­filled me with a sort of foolish fury, which mingled itself with another and manlier craving, namely, to proclaim her vileness then and there before all her titled and admiring friends, and to leave her shamed in the dust of scorn, despised and abandoned.  Yet I knew well that were I to speak out—­to declare my history and hers before that brilliant crowd—­I should be accounted mad, and that for a woman such as she there existed no shame.

The swinging measure of the slow Hungarian waltz, that most witching of dances, danced perfectly only by those of the warm-blooded southern temperament, now commenced.  It was played pianissimo, and stole through the room like the fluttering breath of a soft sea wind.  I had always been an excellent waltzer, and my step had fitted in with that of Nina as harmoniously as the two notes of a perfect chord.  She found it so on this occasion, and glanced up with a look of gratified surprise as I bore her lightly with languorous, dreamlike ease of movement through the glittering ranks of our guests, who watched us admiringly as we circled the room two or three times.

Then—­all present followed our lead, and in a couple of minutes the ball-room was like a moving flower-garden in full bloom, rich with swaying colors and rainbow-like radiance; while the music, growing stronger, and swelling out in marked and even time, echoed forth like the sound of clear-toned bells broken through by the singing of birds.  My heart beat furiously, my brain reeled, my senses swam as I felt my wife’s warm breath on my cheek; I clasped her waist more closely, I held her little gloved hand more firmly.  She felt the double pressure, and, lifting her white eyelids fringed with those long dark lashes that gave such a sleepy witchery to her eyes, her lips parted in a little smile.

“At last you love me!” she whispered.

“At last, at last,” I muttered, scarce knowing what I said.  “Had I not loved you at first, bellissima, I should not have been to you what I am to-night.”

A low ripple of laughter was her response.

“I knew it,” she murmured again, half breathlessly, as I drew her with swifter and more voluptuous motion into the vortex of the dancers.  “You tried to be cold, but I knew I could make you love me--yes, love me passionately—­and I was right.”  Then with an outburst of triumphant vanity she added, “I believe you would die for me!”

I bent over her more closely.  My hot quick breath moved the feathery gold of her hair.

“I have died for you,” I said; “I have killed my old self for your sake.”