"Let me alone, Bess," said Julian. "I cannot breathe, I cannot think when you are by me; my head is like a weir, and all my thoughts tumble, boiling, spattering over, beaten to foam."
Elizabeth withdrew to the porch, where she seated herself, and watched the excited girl on the lawn. She had put her hands to her head and was still pacing up and down, now fast, then slowly, according as her passion or her good nature prevailed.
Then out at the door came Anthony, shouting, "Where is Julian? She promised to dance the Mallard with me! Bessie, have you seen her? I claim her for the Mallard."
Julian heard his voice, and stepped back under the shade of a bank of yews. There was before her gravel, and in that gravel a piece of white spar that shone like a flake of snow in the dark. If she stepped out to that piece of spar he would see her, claim her, and—her evil nature would have got the upper hand. Whither would it lead her? She did not ask that. She saw before her now only the alternative of a half-hour's mad pleasure on the arm of Anthony, of cruel triumph over his already humiliated wife, and abandonment of the contest.
The struggle was over with unexpected brevity. The tune of the Mallard struck up, and Anthony went back into the hall without her, to seek for her there, or to find there another partner.
Then Julian heard the burst of voices in song, for the Mallard was a country dance led by two, with chorus by all the performers as they turned their partners, and went in chain with linked, reversed arms, down the room.
She: When lambkins skip, and apples are growing,
Grass is green, and roses ablow,
When pigeons coo, and cattle are lowing,
Mist lies white in the vale as snow.