Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/206

 They danced through four intervals of music; and though neither of them had more to say to the other than when he had danced with her before, her eyes were not so continuously downcast as they had been on that previous occasion; she looked at him several times with a clear, deliberate gaze in which her sullenness always smouldered; and although he knew this smouldering had nothing to do with him, her eyes disturbed him, as they always had disturbed him when he encountered their full revelation. She had no right, he felt, to look as though she understood him—and understood him contemptuously at that—when manifestly she could not, and knew nothing whatever about him. She did not even know that he was a playwright and in his own way—so far from her little way—a celebrity. Nevertheless, he would have gone on dancing much longer with her when she stopped; for he had never danced with anyone who made him feel so much inclined to dance forever.

"No," she said, when he asked her to wait for the music to begin again. "That's all."

Then, not looking to see if he followed, she went out to where she had left her wrap. He reached it first; put it about her shoulders; she said "Thank you," and without turning her head walked a few