“Oh, but, David,” she said, flurried, “I don’t dance! At least, I know I dance badly, for it’s been mostly with girls! Really—really I’d rather not——”
David altered neither his position nor his expression.
“Come on!” he said. And Gay, with her face flushing exquisitely under the warm, colourless skin, put herself into his arms. And this was for her the wonderful moment of a wonderful evening; she liked to remember that happy second, when the lights and music and flowers and voices were all shining and flashing together in the shabby old ballroom, and David had made her dance with him.
They moved off smoothly. There were a few other couples already dancing, and presently David said: “I got the book, Miss Mansfield’s book, with your dolls’-house story in it, and it is truly remarkable.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you read it for yourself!” Gay exclaimed.
“You gave it to me quite as effectively,” David commented, and was still again. But after a few moments, while they were walking before the first encore, he said: “You dance delightfully. Don’t have the slightest hesitation about dancing!” And later, when they came up to Sylvia and Aunt Flora, he repeated to them: “She dances perfectly, of course. I’ve been trying her out. I hope we’ll hear no more of this not-being-able-to-dance!”
Gay had a second’s uncomfortable impression that Sylvia was not quite pleased; but as David immediately carried Sylvia off for the second dance, there was no time to wonder at it. Gay dutifully took Sylvia’s place beside her aunt, but almost all the guests had arrived now; the girls and Aunt Flora had counted them, forty-three, a hundred times, but now Flora whispered with a sort of agitated pride that there were fifty-one, and, with the household, sixty-one. It was many years since Wastewater had had a party of this size!
“Sylvia says that we must have a furnace put in,” sighed Flora, “and that means tearing up floors—goodness knows what——”
Gay now plunged into the delights of her first real dance with all the ecstasy of eighteen. She danced with any one and everyone, she scarcely knew or cared with whom, but she was always conscious of David, who, in his character as host, was obviously taking upon himself the responsibility for whatever girl looked momentarily like a wallflower, or whatever elderly woman needed an escort across the room.
The glorious, crowded hours flew by, with laughter and compliments and music, with icy brief drinks, and the exchanges of congratulations.