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 “You will certainly not prevent Mr. Gordon dancing, however. Come, Mr. Gordon, we need you.”

“I don’t dance,” Gordon answered shortly.

“You don’t dance?” Mrs. Maurier repeated. “You really don’t dance at all?”

“Run along, Aunt Pat,” the niece answered for him. “We're talking about art.”

Mrs. Maurier sighed. “Where’s Theodore?” she asked at last. “Perhaps he will help us out.”

“He’s in bed. He went to bed right after dinner. But you might go down and ask him if he wants to get up and dance.”

Mrs. Maurier stared helplessly at Gordon. Then she turned away. The steward met her: the gentlemen were sorry, but they had all gone to bed. They were tired after such a strenuous day. She sighed again and passed on to the companionway. There seemed to be nothing else she could do for them. I’ve certainly tried, she told herself, taking this thin satisfaction, and stopped again while something shapeless in the dark companionway unblent, becoming two; and after a white Pete said from the darkness:

“It’s me and Jenny.”

Jenny made a soft meaningless sound, and Mrs. Maurier bent forward suspiciously. Mrs. Wiseman’s remark about excursion boats recurred to her.

“You are enjoying the moon, I suppose?” she remarked.

“Yessum,” Jenny answered. “Were just sitting here.”

“Don’t you children want to dance? They have started the victrola,” Mrs. Maurier said in a resurgence of optimism.

“Yessum,” said Jenny again, after a while. But they made no further move, and Mrs. Maurier sniffed. Quite genteelly, and she said icily:

“Excuse me, please.”