She was a very difficult person to talk to. Her relations seemed to spread themselves all over the place. "Perhaps that is hardly doing justice to the situation," I explained again. "It would be more accurate to put it like this. When I decided--by the way, does your family frequent Paris? No? Good. Well, when I decided to learn the tango, the fact that my friends the Hopkinses of St. John's Wood, or rather Maida Vale, had already learnt it in Paris naturally led me to---- I say, what about an ice? It's getting awfully hot in here." "Oh, I don't think----" "I'll go and get them," I said hastily; and I went and took a long time getting them, and, as it turned out that she didn't want hers after all, a longer time eating them. When I was ready for conversation again the next dance was beginning. With a bow I relinquished her to another. "Come along," said a bright voice behind me; "this is ours." "Hallo, Norah, is that you? Come on." We hurried in, danced in silence, and then found ourselves a comfortable seat. For a moment neither of us spoke.... "Have you learnt the tango yet?" asked Norah. "Fourteen," I said aloud. "Help! Does that mean that I'm the fourteenth person who has asked you?" "The night is yet young, Norah. You are only the eighth. But I was betting that you'd ask me before I counted twenty. You lost, and you owe me a pair of ivory-backed hair-brushes and a cigar-cutter." "Bother! Anyhow, I'm not going to be stopped talking about the tango if I want to. Did you know I was learning? I can do the scissors." "Good. We'll do the new Fleet Street movement together, the scissors-and-paste. You go into the ball-room and do the scissors, and I'll--er--stick here and do the paste." "Can't you really do any of it at all, and aren't you going to learn?" "I can't do any of it at all, Norah. I am not going to learn, Norah." "It isn't so very difficult, you know. I'd teach you myself for tuppence." "Will you stop talking about it for threepence?" I asked, and I took out three coppers. "No." I sighed and put them back again. . . . . . It was the last dance of the evening. My hostess, finding me lonely, had dragged me up to somebody, and I and whatever her name was were in the supper-room drinking our farewell soup. So far we had said nothing to each other. I waited anxiously for her to begin. Suddenly she began. "Have you thought about Christmas presents yet?" she asked. I nearly swooned. With difficulty I remained in an upright position. She was the first person who had not begun by asking me if I danced the tango! "Excuse me," I said. "I'm afraid I didn't--would you tell me your name again?" I felt that it ought to be celebrated in some way. I had some notion of writing a sonnet to her. "Hopkins," she said; "I knew you'd forgotten me." "Of course I haven't," I said, suddenly remembering her. The sonnet would never be written now. "We had a dance together before."