nt.

Yet, when music struck up, Roy was in a fever to be with her again.

Her welcoming smile revived his reckless mood. "Ours--_this_ time,
anyway," he said, in an odd repressed voice.

"Yes--ours."

Her answering look vanquished him utterly. As his arm encircled her, he
fancied she leaned ever so little towards him, as if admitting that she
too felt the thrill of coming together again. Fancy or no, it was like a
lighted match dropped in a powder magazine....

For Roy that single valse, out of scores they had danced together, was
an experience by itself.

While the music plays, a man encircles one woman and another, from
habit, without a flicker of emotion. But to-night volcanic forces in Roy
were rising like champagne when the cork begins to move. Never had he
been so disturbingly aware that he was holding her in his arms; that he
wanted tremendously to go on holding her when the music stopped. To this
danger-point he had been brought by the unconscious effect of delicate
approaches and strategic retreats. And the man who has most firmly kept
the cork on his emotions is often the most unaccountable when it flies
off....

The music ceased. They were merely partners again. He led her out into
starry darkness, velvet soft; very quiet and contained to the outer eye;
inwardly, of a sudden, afraid of himself, still more afraid of the
serenely beautiful girl at his side.

He knew perfectly well what he wanted to do; but not at all what he
wanted to say. For him, as his mother's son, marriage had a sacredness,
an apartness from random emotions, however overwhelming; and it went
against the grain to approach that supreme subject in his present fine
confusion of heart and body and brain.

They wandered on a little. Like himself, she seemed smitten dumb; and
with every moment of silence, he became more acutely aware of her. He
had discovered that this was one of her most potent spells. Never for
long could a man be unaware of her, of the fact that she was before
everything--a woman.

In a sense--how different!--it had been the same with Aruna. But with
Aruna it was primitive, instinctive. This exotic flower of Western
girlhood wielded her power with conscious, consummate skill....

Near a seat well away from the Hall she stopped. "We don't want any more
exercise, do we?" she said softly.

"I've had enough for the present," he answered. And they sat down.

Silence again. He didn't know what to say to her. He only