p. Beside him, hunched up on a
window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of
reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the
floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz,
now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty
people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La
Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but
firmly placed his arm round his padrone's waist, took his left hand and
began to turn him about in a slow waltz, while Amedeo followed the
example given with Maddalena. Round and round they went among the other
couples. The organ in the corner ground out a wheezy tune. The reed-flute
of the shepherd boy twittered, as perhaps, long ago, on the great
mountain that looked down in the night above the village, a similar flute
twittered from the woods to Empedocles climbing upward for the last time
towards the plume of smoke that floated from the volcano. And then Amedeo
and Gaspare danced together and Maurice's arm was about the waist of
Maddalena.

It was the first time that he had danced with her, and the mutual act
seemed to him to increase their intimacy, to carry them a step forward in
this short and curious friendship which was now, surely, very close to
its end. They did not speak as they danced. Maddalena's face was very
solemn, like the face of one taking part in an important ceremonial. And
Maurice, too, felt serious, even sad. The darkness and heat of the room,
the melancholy with which all the tunes of a grinding organ seem
impregnated, the complicated sounds from the fair outside, from which now
and again the voices of the Roman ice-venders detached themselves, even
the tapping of the heavy boots of the dancers upon the floor of
brick--all things in this hour moved him to a certain dreariness of the
spirit which was touched with sentimentality. This fair day was coming to
an end. He felt as if everything were coming to an end.

Every dog has his day. The old saying came to his mind. "Every dog has
his day--and mine is over."

He saw in the dimness of the room the face of Hermione at the railway
carriage window. It was the face of one on the edge of some great
beginning. But she did not know. Hermione did not know.

The dance was over. Another was formed, a country dance. Again Maurice
was Maddalena's partner. Then came "La Fasola," in which Amedeo prou