inutive moustaches, who were
evidently prepared for once to sacrifice themselves as partners.

Somerset felt something of a thrill at the sight. He was an infrequent
dancer, and particularly unprepared for dancing at present; but to dance
once with Paula Power he would give a year of his life. He looked round;
but she was nowhere to be seen. The first set began; old and middle-aged
people gathered from the different rooms to look on at the gyrations of
their children, but Paula did not appear. When another dance or two had
progressed, and an increase in the average age of the dancers was making
itself perceptible, especially on the masculine side, Somerset was
aroused by a whisper at his elbow--

'You dance, I think? Miss Deverell is disengaged. She has not been asked
once this evening.' The speaker was Paula.

Somerset looked at Miss Deverell--a sallow lady with black twinkling
eyes, yellow costume, and gay laugh, who had been there all the
afternoon--and said something about having thought of going home.

'Is that because I asked you to dance?' she murmured. 'There--she is
appropriated.' A young gentleman had at that moment approached the
uninviting Miss Deverell, claimed her hand and led her off.

'That's right,' said Somerset. 'I ought to leave room for younger men.'

'You need not say so. That bald-headed gentleman is forty-five. He does
not think of younger men.'

'Have YOU a dance to spare for me?'

Her face grew stealthily redder in the candle-light. 'O!--I have no
engagement at all--I have refused. I hardly feel at liberty to dance; it
would be as well to leave that to my visitors.'

'Why?'

'My father, though he allowed me to be taught, never liked the idea of
my dancing.'

'Did he make you promise anything on the point?'

'He said he was not in favour of such amusements--no more.'

'I think you are not bound by that, on an informal occasion like the
present.'

She was silent.

'You will just once?' said he.

Another silence. 'If you like,' she venturesomely answered at last.

Somerset closed the hand which was hanging by his side, and somehow hers
was in it. The dance was nearly formed, and he led her forward. Several
persons looked at them significantly, but he did not notice it then, and
plunged into the maze.

Never had Mr. Somerset passed through such an experience before. Had he
not felt her actual weight and warmth, he might have fancied the whole
episode a figment of the imaginat