nute thread off his sleeve. But
it didn't matter. Almost immediately the band started and her second
partner seemed to spring from the ceiling.

"Floor's not bad," said the new voice. Did one always begin with the
floor? And then, "Were you at the Neaves' on Tuesday?" And again Leila
explained. Perhaps it was a little strange that her partners were not
more interested. For it was thrilling. Her first ball! She was only at
the beginning of everything. It seemed to her that she had never known
what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent,
beautiful very often--oh yes--but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it
would never be like that again--it had opened dazzling bright.

"Care for an ice?" said her partner. And they went through the swing
doors, down the passage, to the supper room. Her cheeks burned, she was
fearfully thirsty. How sweet the ices looked on little glass plates and
how cold the frosted spoon was, iced too! And when they came back to
the hall there was the fat man waiting for her by the door. It gave her
quite a shock again to see how old he was; he ought to have been on the
stage with the fathers and mothers. And when Leila compared him with her
other partners he looked shabby. His waistcoat was creased, there was
a button off his glove, his coat looked as if it was dusty with French
chalk.

"Come along, little lady," said the fat man. He scarcely troubled to
clasp her, and they moved away so gently, it was more like walking than
dancing. But he said not a word about the floor. "Your first dance,
isn't it?" he murmured.

"How did you know?"

"Ah," said the fat man, "that's what it is to be old!" He wheezed
faintly as he steered her past an awkward couple. "You see, I've been
doing this kind of thing for the last thirty years."

"Thirty years?" cried Leila. Twelve years before she was born!

"It hardly bears thinking about, does it?" said the fat man gloomily.
Leila looked at his bald head, and she felt quite sorry for him.

"I think it's marvellous to be still going on," she said kindly.

"Kind little lady," said the fat man, and he pressed her a little
closer, and hummed a bar of the waltz. "Of course," he said, "you can't
hope to last anything like as long as that. No-o," said the fat man,
"long before that you'll be sitting up there on the stage, looking on,
in your nice black velvet. And these pretty arms will have turned into
little short fat ones, and you'll beat time