After a little while Julian held her as if he had ceased to expect or desire any response or rhythm from the lumpish wooden body he had to push. It was no good trying to keep things going much longer.... All things were coming waveringly to an end. The end would come with her own voice saying: “Martin has been drowned.” After that there would be a breaking-up and confusion, a going away to hide.... Not yet. The dancing competition had started, amid loud laughter and applause. The couples, gradually thinning out, circled self-consciously. The little soft-eyed half-caste brother and sister--they were the ones. Their bodies were lithe and flat and sinuous, their proudly-carried small heads shone like black water, their eyes and lips were dreamy, sensual, sad, their limbs made poetry and music as they moved. They agreed, as prize-winners, to dance an exhibition dance. Blushing, her teeth sparkling in a smile, she glided from the other end of the room towards her brother. He gave her his hand, she paused with a swirl of her long full yellow skirt,--and then they started swaying and circling together. They whirled; stopped dead; whirled again. He lifted her in the air and there she hung poised, laughing at him, pointing her tiny foot, then dropped like a feather and went weaving on. Oh, let them dance for ever! While they danced, people could die, gently, easily, as a dancer sinks to earth, without pain to them or horror to others. Let them dance for ever!... It was over. Hand in hand they curtsied and bowed, and ran off the floor. ‘That was dancing,’ said Julian. ‘Nobody but each other to dance with, you see, poor little devils. That’s the way to learn.’ Roddy would have danced with that soft-smiling side-long-glancing little dancer: he would have made a point of it, not out of pity. Martin would have left her alone with quiet distaste. _Then, in a flash, saw the sea try With savage wrath and efforts wild To smash its rocks with a dead child._ To smash its rocks with Martin. Everybody was very gay now. Through the smoke, all the eyes and mouths laughed, excited with wine and dancing. Balloons and favours waved; the band blared. The musicians donned false noses and moustaches and stood up, leaping and shouting. _Oh, this place is Hell!_ Yes, Hell. Grimacing faces, obscene bodies, chattering parrot and monkey voices; Hell’s musicians, with vicious tunes and features dark with unmentionable evil.... The lights were dimmed, the floor cleared. A dancing girl leapt into the middle of the space, throwing flowers. Her white ballet skirts spun mistily. The lights were extinguished altogether, and you saw that the outline of her bodice and her skirts, her shoe-buckles and the star on her forehead had been painted with luminous paint; so that now she was three stars and some circles and loops of light, wheeling fantastically in the dark. Now was the time to slip out. Julian would not notice.