"Oh, I—I don't dance," he said.
"Won't you let me teach you?"
His eyes were still on hers. He seemed to give the simple question weighty consideration. Then his eyes dropped to his hands.
"Hallo," he said, as if to himself. His programme was where Miss Levey had put it, dangling from his wrist as if from a hook. Apparently he had not noticed it before. Then, looking at Louie again, he said: "I mean, my gloves—I've no gloves."
"Gloves!" she said quietly. "Come."
She took the absurd programme from his wrist, threw it away, and put her gloved hand into his naked one.
She drew Mr. Jeffries into the current.
Louie had danced with ignoramuses before, but never with a man quite so awkward as this. She did her best to steer him, but before they had gone half-way round the room they had collided with Evie Soames, leaning back in the crook of young Merridew's arm—with Kitty Windus, tiptoe and leaning forward over her partner—with Mr. Mackie, who had lighted a cigarette and was singing the refrain of the dance as he passed. Then Mr. Jeffries begged her, out of consideration for herself, to stop. But she had no desire to stop. She wondered why, bumped and trampled so, she should want to go on, but she gave that riddle up. He did not cease to apologise for his ungainliness.
But the riddle of why she did not wish to stop refused to be given up. It renewed itself with each of his apologies. Stumbling ludicrously, she knew that she still wished to go on. What she did not know at that time of her life was that she had secrets that hitherto she had kept even from herself.
Then, all in a moment, the strange thing happened. She felt that colour, that stress and anger never brought there, rise slow and warm into her cheeks. Her glance had merely rested for a moment on that hand of hers that lay slender as a willow leaf in his, but the riddle was a puzzle no longer. Abashed, she had surprised a secret.