Delighted, he sprang to his feet, gave her his arm, and whirled her into the dance.
Slowing down to take breath, Mendel looked in her direction. She was gone! A black despair seized him, a groan escaped him; he hugged Jessie tight against his body and plunged madly into the dance.
The musicians had been given champagne. The violinist began to embroider upon the tune and the ’cellist followed with voluptuous thrumming chords.
Jessie gave little cries of happiness to feel the growing strength in Mendel’s arms, the waxing power of his smooth movements. She gave little cries like the call of a quail, and he laughed gleefully every time she cried. He could feel the force rising in him. It would surely burst out of him and break into molten streams of laughter, leaving him deliciously light, as light and absurd as dear little Jessie, who was swinging on the music like a dewdrop on a gossamer. . . . If only the music would last long enough! He would be as tremulous and light as she, and while that lightness lasted he could love her and taste life at its highest point—for her. . . . She was aware of his desire, and swung to it. It was like a wind swaying her, thistledown as she was; like a wind blowing her through the air on a summer’s day. O that it might never end, that the sky might never be overcast, that the rain might never come and the night might never fall. . . . Terrible things had happened to Jessie in the night, and she was happy in the sun.
Mendel was past all dizziness. The room had spun round until it could spin no more, and then it had unwound itself, making him feel weak and giddy. He was very nearly clear-headed, and every now and then he caught a glimpse of Logan sketching and of Oliver, sitting with a sulky pout on her lips and tears in her eyes because she wanted to dance and knew she had made a failure of it.
“Lovely! lovely! lovely!” sighed Jessie.
“You are like the white kernel of a nut,” said Mendel, “when the shell is broken.”
“Do let me come and sit for you,” she said. “I won’t want anything except my dinner.”
“Better keep to the dancing,” he answered, as he spun her round to stop her talking.