“Or until some day you marry and your wife becomes jealous,” added Lucy laughing.
“Or until I marry and my wife is jealous,” repeated Dunlap with the faintest kind of emphasis upon “until.”
Miss Stanhope began to play a waltz of the inspiring nature that almost makes old and gouty feet to tingle, and is perfectly irresistible to the young and joyous. Burton and Miss Winthrop in a minute were whirling around the drawing-room. How perfectly Burton could dance; his easy rythmic steps were the very poetry of motion. Lucy and Jack paused to watch the handsome couple as they glided gracefully through the room.
“Does not Walter dance beautifully?” exclaimed Lucy as she followed the dancers with admiring glances.
“Bertie Winthrop, who was at Harvard with Walter, says that when they were students and had their stag parties if they could catch Walter in what Bertie calls ‘a gay mood,’ he would astonish them with his wonderful dancing. Bertie vows that Walter can dance any kind of thing from a vulgar gig to an exquisite ballet, but he is so awfully modest about it that he denies Bertie’s story and will not dance anything but the conventional,” continued Lucy.
“Take a turn, Jack!” called Burton as he and his partner swept by the corner where the sailor and his cousin were seated, and added as he passed, “It is your last chance for some time.”
“Come on, Jack,” cried Lucy springing up and extending her hands. A moment more and Jack was holding near his bosom the woman for whom his heart would beat until death should still it forever.
Oft midst the howling winds and angry waves, when storm tossed on the sea, will Jack dream o’er again the heavenly bliss of those few moments when close to his heart rested she who was the beacon light of his sailor’s soul.
When the music of the waltz ended, Jack and his fair partner found themselves just in front of the settee where John Dunlap and Mrs. Church were seated.