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“Aren’t you going to play whist?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said. “Directly. ”

“I do wish you could dance. ”

“Well, I can’t,” he said. “So you enjoy yourself. ”

“But I should enjoy it better if I could dance with you. ”

“Nay, you’re all right,” he said. “I’m not made that way. ”

“Then you ought to be!” she cried.

“Well, it’s my fault, not yours. You enjoy yourself,” he bade her. Which she proceeded to do, a little bit irked.

She went with anticipation to the arms of Sam Adams, when the time came to dance with him. It WAS so gratifying, irrespective of the man. And she felt a little grudge against Whiston, soon forgotten when her host was holding her near to him, in a delicious embrace. And she watched his eyes, to meet the gleam in them, which gratified her.

She was getting warmed right through, the glow was penetrating into her, driving away everything else. Only in her heart was a little tightness, like conscience.

When she got a chance, she escaped from the dancing-room to the card-room. There, in a cloud of smoke, she found Whiston playing cribbage. Radiant, roused, animated, she came up to him and greeted him. She was too strong, too vibrant a note in the quiet room. He lifted his head, and a frown knitted his gloomy forehead.

“Are you playing cribbage? Is it exciting? How are you getting on?” she chattered.

He looked at her. None of these questions needed answering, and he did not feel in touch with her. She turned to the cribbage-board.

“Are you white or red?” she asked.

“He’s red,” replied the partner.

“Then you’re losing,” she said, still to Whiston. And she lifted the red peg from the board. “One—two—three—four—five—six— seven—eight—Right up there you ought to jump—”

“Now put it back in its right place,” said Whiston.

“Where was it?” she asked gaily, knowing her transgression. He took the little red peg away from her and stuck it in its hole.

The cards were shuffled.

“What a shame you’re losing!” said Elsie.

“You’d better cut for him,” said the partner.

She did so, hastily. The cards were dealt. She put her hand on his shoulder, looking at his cards.

“It’s good,” she cried, “isn’t it?”

He did not answer, but threw down two cards. It moved him more strongly than was comfortable, to have her hand on his shoulder, her curls dangling and touching his ears, whilst she was roused to another man. It made the blood flame over him.

At that moment Sam Adams appeared, florid and boisterous, intoxicated more with himself, with the dancing, than with wine. In his eyes the curious, impersonal light gleamed.

“I thought I should find you here, Elsie,” he cried boisterously, a disturbing, high note in his voice.

“What made you think so?” she replied, the mischief rousing in her.

The florid, well-built man narrowed his eyes to a smile.

“I should never look for you among the ladies,” he said, with a kind of intimate, animal call to her. He laughed, bowed, and offered her his arm.

“Madam, the music waits. ”

She went almost helplessly, carried along with him, unwilling, yet delighted.

That dance was an intoxication to her. After the first few steps, she felt herself slipping away from herself. She almost knew she was going, she did not even want to go. Yet she must have chosen to go. She lay in the arm of the steady, close man with whom she was dancing, and she seemed to swim away out of contact with the room, into him. She had passed into another, denser element of him, an essential privacy. The room was all vague around her, like an atmosphere, like
under sea, with a flow of ghostly, dumb movements. But she herself was held real against her partner, and it seemed she was connected with him, as if the movements of his body and limbs were her own movements, yet not her own movements— and oh, delicious! He also was given up, oblivious, concentrated, into the dance. His eye was unseeing. Only his large, voluptuous body gave off a subtle activity. His fingers seemed to search into her flesh. Every moment, and every moment, she felt she would give way utterly, and sink molten: the fusion point was coming when she would fuse down into perfect unconsciousness at his feet and knees. But he bore her round the room in the dance, and he seemed to sustain all her body with his limbs, his body, and his warmth seemed to come closer into her, nearer, till it would fuse right through her, and she would be as liquid to him, as an intoxication only.