Again her heart was beating very fast; she wondered why.
He answered her with an impetuosity that seemed to carry her along with it. "Because your dancing is superb, magnificent, and I want to keep it for myself. It may not be the same when you've danced with another man. A flower fresh plucked is always sweeter than one that someone else has worn."
Dinah's hands clasped each other unconsciously. She had never dreamed that Apollo could so stoop to favour her.
"I will do as you like," she murmured after a moment. "But I don't suppose for an instant that anyone else would want to dance with me. I don't know anyone else."
He smiled. "I'm glad of that. It would be sheer sacrilege for you to dance with a young oaf who didn't know how. It's a bargain then. I'll give you all I can. You mustn't tell, of course."
"Oh, I won't tell," laughed Dinah.
He gave her his arm. "They are tuning up. We won't lose a minute. I always like a clear floor, before the rabble begin."
He led her to the top of the room, stood for a moment; then, as the music began, caught her to him, and they floated once more into the shining, enchanted mazes of their dreamland.
And Dinah danced as one inspired, for it seemed to her that her feet moved upon air as though winged. Apollo had drawn her up to Olympus, and she drifted in his arm in spheres unknown, far above the clouds.