Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/78

 "Get off the earth, can't you? Nobody wants to look at you."

Albert and May were struck motionless. Hurriedly they escaped into the crowd of onlookers and their faces, too, became round, watching daisy faces.

Jimmy and Delight danced on. He was a well-proportioned, agile young fellow, and he danced with grace and vigour, inspired by the knowledge that he held the loveliest girl in Brancepeth (in the world, he believed) in his arms. Delight's long eyes were half-closed in the ecstasy of the dance, in the somnolent, heavy throbbing of the band, in the admiring light of all these rows and rows of eyes that watched her every motion. She was conscious of every part of herself, as one might think a star would be conscious of its every glittering point. She was conscious of her curls dancing on her head, of her long lashes, as they swept towards her cheek, of her firm breasts that seemed to hold the rhythm of the dance, of her strong thighs that never tired, of her gay, tripping feet. She was conscious, too, of Jimmy's body beside her, guiding her caressingly. But she was only dimly conscious of that.

"Who is she? Who is she?" gasped Ada in Albert's ear. Everyone was asking the same question.

"My goodness, what a show she's making of herself!" went on Ada angrily. "This Firemen's Ball is gettin' a little too common for me. For two cents I'd go home."

"You'd go alone, then," returned Albert, "for I'm goin' to daunce as long as there's a ruddy 'op in me."

The music had stopped. The crowd surged into a kaleidoscopic pattern. Bastien and Kirke had strolled in together, just before the dance had ceased. The effect of the spectacle on the two men was strikingly different. Bastien's dark-blue eyes bulged in astonishment; he