The dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares over the stalls, and once more that creep—delicious, tingling, suffocating—was in her heart, the intoxication of the weak by the strong. It seemed as if he were holding her closer. She grew warm, and yet she would not stop. There was sweat on her forehead, she felt her woollen gown sticking to her shoulders—but she would not rest. The same old tune jigged on—it was good to dance to, and Harry liked playing it.
"O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?"
The dance was becoming more of a rout. Hats fell back, even Naomi's heather-coloured bonnet became disorderly. Kerchiefs were crumpled and necks bare. Arms grew tighter, there were few merely clasping hands now. Then a lad kissed his partner on the neck while they danced, and soon another couple were spinning round with lips clinging together. The girls' hair grew rough and blew in their boys' eyes—there were sounds of panting—of kissing—Naomi grew giddy, round her was a whirl of colour, hands, faces, the dusk and flaring lights. She clung closer to Reuben, and his arms tightened about her.
"One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
And years of despair and remorse been your fate,
Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
And turn to your true love—and find it too late."