The first quadrilles are full of lovely gliding figures. Violet dances with her husband, then with Eugene. Floyd and Madame Lepelletier are in the same set. It is the first time he has danced with her since they were betrothed. She knows if she had stayed at home and married him, neither would have been the kind of people they are now, and she does not envy that old time, but she wants the power in her hands that she had then. She would not even care to give up all the years of adulation when rank and title were an open-sesame to golden doors, and even now has its prestige. There is nothing she really cares for but the love of this man, little as she believes in the divine power.
The fête is really open now. Guests stroll about and listen to the music, or sit on the balcony chairs and watch the dancing. By and by there are some soft melodious waves with no especial meaning, then the French horns pipe a delicious thrill, "viol, flute and bassoon" burst into beguiling bloom of the Zamora, and hands steal out to other hands, arms cling to arms, and the winding, bewildering waltz begins.
Violet is talking to a young man, one of the Grandon Park neighbors, who stands bashfully wondering if it would do to ask her to waltz. Unconsciously her feet are keeping time, and her heart seems to rise and fall to the enchantment in the air. Then she feels a presence behind her and turns.
"This is our waltz," Floyd Grandon says, just above a whisper, and, bowing to her companion, leads her away.
"Shall we go out on the balcony?" he asks, and the quick pressure on his arm answers him. Out in the wide warm summer night, where the air throbs and glows with some weird enchantment, he puts his arm about her and draws her close; there are several irregular measures, then their figures and steps seem to settle to each other, and they float down the long space, up again, there is reversing to steady her a little, then on and on. He looks down at the drooping eyes with their tremulous lids, at the faint flush that comes and goes, he feels the throbbing breath, and realizes what a powerful and seductive temptation this might become. He is even kindled himself. For the first time he feels himself capable of rousing such a torrent of love in her that her whole soul shall be absorbed in his. Down in this shady corner, while the other couples are quite at the other end, he raises the sweet face, tranced in the beguiling melody of movement, and kisses the lips with all a man's passionate fervor, holds her in such a clasp that she struggles and throws out one hand wildly, as if suddenly stricken blind, and a frightened expression drowns the sweet delight.
"Oh!" and she gives a little cry of pain and mystery.
"My darling!"
The voice is tenderly reassuring, and they float on again, but for a brief moment the lightness seems gone out of her feet. He draws a long, deep inspiration. Sweet, tender, and devoted as she is, it is not her time to love, and he remembers all the years between them. She is as innocent of the deeper depths of passion as Cecil.
There is a long, long throb on the air, almost a wail of regret, from the human voices of the violins. The cornet seems to run off in the distance, and the horns have a sob in their last notes. The dancers stop with languid reluctance. Floyd Grandon leads his wife along as if he would take her down the steps, away somewhere.
"Let us sit here," she cries, suddenly, and there is a curious strain in her voice, a thrill as of fear. Does she not dare trust herself with him anywhere, everywhere?