"The way she'll be just as nice to anybody like Noble Dill as she is to anybody," said the first. "Look at her now: she won't laugh at him a bit, though everybody else is."
"Well, I wouldn't laugh either," said the other. "Not in Julia's position. I'd be too busy being afraid."
"What of?"
"Of getting a sprained ankle!"
It is well that telepathy remains, as a science, lethargic. Speculation sets before us the prospect of a Life Beyond in which every thought is communicated without the intervention of speech: a state wherein all neighbours and neighbourhoods would promptly be dispersed and few friendships long endure, one fears. If to Noble Dill's active consciousness had penetrated merely the things thought about him and his dancing, in this one short period of time before the music for that dance stopped, he might easily have been understood if he had hurried forth, obtained explosives, and blown up the place, himself indeed included. As matters providentially were in reality, when the music stopped he stood confounded: he thought the dance had just begun.
His mouth remained open until the necessary gestures of articulation intermittently closed it as he said: "Oh! That was divine!"
Too-gentle Julia agreed.
"You said I could have part of some in between the first and last," he reminded her. "Can I have the first part of the next?"
She laughed. "I'm afraid not. The next is Mr. Clairdyce's and I really promised him I wouldn't give any of his away or let anybody cut in."
"Well, then," said Noble, frowning a little, "would you be willing for me to cut in on the third?"