“Are you frightened?”
“I am gone mad!”
It was not yet their time, and he drew her to a nook behind the curtain of jasmines where they were alone.
“Why did thee bring me here?” she asked.
“I want to call you Mary Ann,” he said.
“Mad, too!” she laughed.
“For the first time in my life, I believe,” he said, “I am embarrassed. I feel like he must feel who has gayly stolen something and found it immeasurably precious. But, yet—”
“Hush! Thee is mad, too. Be content. Soon we shall wake and find it all a dream. But, me? Oh, John, John, John, let me dream this one dream and ever after sleep!”
The orchestra, as if answering her wish, opened a waltz. She cried out and put her hands close on her ears. But even then she swayed to the rhythm, she closed her eyes, and slowly moved to the beating of the arch tempting of the violins, as if it were all part of some spell. John Rem put his arm about her waist. She raised her head a moment and looked with a gasp of ecstasy fair into his eyes, then gave him her hands.
And, so, they danced—all the night. There were—yes—other times when they sat there behind the jasmines—but, for her, the vibration—the mad ecstasy never ceased.