Page:The Inner House.djvu/73

Rh been able to understand how the Past could be so suddenly assumed. To admire—actually to admire—a woman, knowing all the time—it is impossible to conceal the fact—that she is your inferior, that she is inferior in strength and intellect! Well, I have already called them unfortunate men; I can say no more. How can people admire things below themselves? When she had played for a quarter of an hour or so, this young man called upon her to stop. The dancers stopped too, panting, their eyes full of light, their cheeks flushed and their lips parted.

"Oh," Dorothy sighed, "I never thought to feel such happiness again. I could dance on forever."

"With me?" murmured Geoffrey. "I was praying that the last round might never stop. With me?"

"With you," she whispered.

"Come!" cried the young man Jack. "It is too bad. Christine must dance. Play for us, Cousin Mildred, and I will give her a lesson."

Mildred laughed. Then she started at the unwonted sound. The others laughed to hear it, and the walls of the Museum echoed with the laughter of girls. The old man sat up in his chair and looked around.

"I thought I was at Philippe's, in Paris," he said. "I thought we were having a supper after the theatre. There was Ninette, and there was Madeleine—and—and—"

He looked about him bewildered. Then he dropped his head and went to sleep again. When he was neither eating nor battling for his breath, he was always sleeping.

"I am your cousin. Jack," said Mildred; "but I had long forgotten it. And as for playing—but I will try. Perhaps the old touch will return."

It did. She played with far greater skill and power