For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato.
The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately, were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience of monocled Gods.
Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on which Charles hung a score of fancies.
"You are feeling faint?" he inquired.
"No, no."
"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be distinguished from Loves.
The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden than before.
The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers. Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water.
"You are fond of dancing, madam?"
"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly."