The night of our betrothal! What a time to remind me of it! I had just seen Ned and Milly join the group we had left; and as they, too, began to dance, I felt a stab of pain that made me answer angrily--we were barely escaping collision with another couple:-- "If it's only at Commencement that you care to dance--" He tightened his grip upon me almost roughly, then took me back to my Aunt without a word. I tried to reason myself out of my pettishness, to atone to John, poor fellow! But my eyes followed Ned and Milly among the graceful, flying figures, and my feet tapped the floor impatiently until, presently, the music stopped and they came to us. Then Ned's parted lips said something, and then--as the music recommenced, I was in his arms and, almost without my own knowledge or volition, was moving around the room. Moving, not dancing--floating in a rosy light, away and away from them all, into endless space, my hand in his, his breath on my cheek; always to go on, I felt; on and on, to the dim borderland between this earth and Heaven. Presently his eyes told me that something was happening. The dancers had been too busily engaged to pay much heed to my first brief adventure, but in the intermission of the music I had been noticed, and now I saw that there was an open space about us. Here and there a couple stood as they had risen from their seats, while others, who had begun to dance, had come to a pause. Slender girls in clouds of gauze and fat matrons panting in satins were gazing in our direction. In the doorway were gathered people from the parlours. "Are they looking at us? We must stop," I whispered. "Looking at you, not us. But don't stop; not yet--Helen!" "Helen!" He had called my name! My eyes must have shown with bliss and terror. I had an almost overmastering desire to whisper his name also, to answer the entreaty of his voice, the clasp of his fingers. But I forced myself to remember how many eyes were watching. "I--we must stop," I said. "Not yet; unless--we shall dance together again?" I scarcely heard the "yes" I breathed. I shouldn't have known what I had said but for the sudden light in his eyes, the firmer pressure of his arm. My feet didn't seem to touch the floor, as he gently constrained me when I would have ceased to dance, and kept me circling round with him until we came opposite my seat; then he put me into it as naturally as if I had been tired. Tired! Our faces told--they must have told our story. But the others were blind--blind! John had risen as if to meet us, but if he took note at all of my flushed face, he doubtless thought me frightened. It was exultation, not fright. I did not heed the following eyes, when, as gliding figures began to cover the floor again, John took me back to the parlours. I went with him submissively; I thought of nothing but the joy of my life, the love of my lover. I shall think of nothing else to the end of my days.