es people talk!" said Alice. "As for
Mr. Falloden--perhaps she's found out what a horrid creature he is."

The band struck up. It was a mazurka with a swinging tune. Radowitz
opposite sprang to his feet, with a boyish gesture of delight.

"Come!" he said to Constance; and they took the floor. Supper had
thinned the hall, and the dancers who stood in the doorways and along
the walls involuntarily paused to watch the pair. Falloden and Mrs.
Glendower had just returned from supper. They too stood among the
spectators.

The dance they watched was the very embodiment of youth, and youth's
delight in itself. Constance knew, besides, that Falloden was looking
on, and the knowledge gave a deeper colour to her cheek, a touch of
wildness to her perfect grace of limb and movement. Radowitz danced the
Polish dance with a number of steps and gestures unknown to an English
ballroom, as he had learnt them in his childhood from a Polish
dancing-mistress; Constance, with the instinct of her foreign training,
adapted herself to him, and the result was enchanting. The slim girl in
black, and the handsome youth, his golden hair standing up straight, _en
brosse_, round his open brow and laughing eyes, seemed, as dancers, made
for each other. They were absorbed in the poetry of concerted movement,
the rhythm of lilting sound.

"Mountebank!" said Falloden to Meyrick, contemptuously, as the couple
passed.

Radowitz saw his enemy, and though he could not hear what was said, was
sure that it was something insulting. He drew himself up, and as he
passed on with Constance he flung a look of mingled triumph and defiance
at the group of "bloods" standing together, at Falloden in particular.
Falloden had not danced once with her, had not been allowed once to
touch her white hand. It was he, Radowitz, who had carried her off--whom
she had chosen--whom she had honoured. The boy's heart swelled with joy
and pride; the artist in him, of another race than ours, realising and
sharpening the situation, beyond the English measure.

And, afterwards, he danced with her again--many times. Moreover with him
and an escort of his friends--for in general the young Pole with his
musical gift and his romantic temperament was popular in
Oxford--Constance made the round of the illuminated river-walks and the
gleaming cloisters, moving like a goddess among the bevy of youths who
hung upon her smiles. The intoxication of it banished thought and
silenced regret.