e side of her hair, and
considered the effect; she took a powderpuff, and patted cheeks and
neck with powder. Next she picked up a narrow band of velvet, on which
a small star was set, and put it round her throat. But the clasp would
not meet behind, and, having tried several times in vain to fasten it,
she gave an impatient exclamation.

"I can't get it in."

As Maurice did not offer to help her, she went out of the room with the
thing in her hand. During the few seconds she was absent, the young man
racked his brain to invent telling reasons which would induce her not
to go; but when she returned, slightly flushed at the landlady's ready
flattery, she was still so engrossed in herself, and so unmindful of
him, that he recognised once more his utter powerlessness. He only half
existed for her this evening: her manner was as different as her dress.

She gathered her skirts high under her cloak, displaying her feet in
fur-lined snow-boots. In the turmoil of his mind, Maurice found nothing
to say as they went. But she did not notice his silence; there was a
suppressed excitement in her very walk; and she breathed in the cold,
crisp air with open lips and nostrils, like a wild animal.

"Oh, how glad I am I came! I might still have been sitting in that dull
room--when I haven't danced for years--and when I love it so!"

"I can't understand you caring about it," he said, and the few words
contained all his bitterness.

"That is only because you don't know me," she retorted, and laughed.
"Dancing is a passion with me. I have dance-rhythms in my blood, I
think.--My mother was a dancer."

He echoed her words in a helpless way, and a set of new images ran riot
in his brain. But Louise only smiled, and said no more.

They were late in arriving; dancing had already begun; the cloak-rooms
were black with coats and mantles. In the narrow passage that divided
the rooms, two Englishmen were putting on their gloves. As Maurice
changed his shoes, close to the door, he overheard one of these men say
excitedly: "By Jove, there's a pair of shoulders! Who the deuce is it?"

Maurice knew the speaker by sight: he was a medical student, named
Herries, who, on the ice, had been conspicuous for his skill as a
skater. He had a small dark moustache, and wore a bunch of violets in
his buttonhole.

"You haven't been here long enough, old man, or you wouldn't need to
ask," answered his companion. Then he dropped his voice, and made a
some