He danced with her several times. Her cheeks were glowing and the lustre of her eyes was like the sparkle of the stars. Her lips were slightly parted, and now and then her breath came quickly. As they swung round and round, she sometimes closed her eyes and then slowly opened them again. He became aware of some strange emotion that he had never known before.

"I love dancin'," she murmured, half to herself.

"Yes," he replied, scarcely knowing that he was speaking.

"I love dancin'," she said again, and again he said "Yes" and no more....

He led her to a seat at the side of the room and sat down on the chair next to it. They did not speak, but sat there watching the swift movements of the other dancers. Marsh was somewhere at the other end of the room, looking on ... a little puzzled, a little disturbed ... but pleased, too, because the dancers were pleased. He was wondering why the interest in the Gaelic language was not so strong as the interest in the waltz. "A foreign dance, too ... not Gaelic at all!"

But Henry had forgotten the Gaelic movement, and was conscious only of the girl beside him and her glowing cheeks and her bright eyes and the softness of her.... She was older than he was, a couple of years and he noticed that she had just "put up" her hair. It had been hanging loosely when he first saw her, and he wondered which he liked better, the loose, hanging hair, or the hair bound round her head. Her slender white neck was revealed now that her hair was up, and it was very beautiful, but he thought that after all, his first sight of her, as she stood in the doorway, the raindrops still on her face, and flung back the long, loose strands of dark hair that lay about her shoulders ... he still thought that was the loveliest vision of her he had seen....

Then he remembered Mary Graham. She, too, had long loose hair that lay in dark lengths about her shoulders, and her eyes, too, could shine ... but she was a girl, and Sheila was a woman!... He was engaged to Mary, of course ... well, was it an engagement? They had been sweethearts and he had told her he loved her and she had said that she would marry him ... and all that ... but they were kids when that happened. Ninian had called him a sloppy ass!... This was different. His feeling for Sheila Morgan was different from his feeling for Mary Graham. He had never felt for any one as he felt for Sheila. He seemed unaccountably to be more aware of Sheila than he was of Mary. He could not altogether understand this difference of sensation ... but sometimes when he had been with Mary, he had forgotten that she was a girl ... she was just some one with whom he was playing a game or going for a walk or taking a bathe in the sea. But he could not forget that Sheila was a woman. When he had danced with her and his arm was about her waist and her fingers were in his ... he seemed to grow up. He felt as if something at which he had been gazing uncomprehendingly for a long time, had suddenly become known to him. He recognised something ... understood something which had puzzled him.

"Let's dance again," he said, standing up before her.

"All right," she answered, rising and going to him.

"I love dancing," he said to her.

"Yes," she murmured in reply.