"Violet," says Mr. Grandon, "will you waltz awhile? Mrs. Dayre has kindly offered to play."
"I am not tired," answers Violet, in that curious, breathless tone which is almost a refusal.
"But I want you to," declares Bertie. "Mr. Eugene has so roused my curiosity."
Floyd takes her hand with a certain sense of mastery, and she yields. It is not the glad, joyous alacrity she has heretofore evinced. Eugene's half-confession, made with a feeling of honor that rarely attacks the young man, has failed of its mission. Some sense of fine adjustment is wanting.
Mrs. Dayre strikes into a florid whirl that would answer for a peasant picnic under the trees.
"Not that," says Eugene. "Some of those lovely, undulating movements. Oh, there is that Beautiful Blue Danube——"
"Which they waltzed when they came out of the ark," laughs Bertie, "but it is lovely."
The strain touches Violet. The great animating hope for joy has dropped out of her life, but youth is left, and youth cannot help being moved. Mrs. Dayre plays with an enchanting softness, and they float up and down as in some tranced sea.
"She waltzes fairly," comments Miss Dayre, "only she should be taller. I should like to waltz with him myself."
"They are a sort of Darby and Joan couple," says Eugene, evasively, "and his dancing days are about over."