It was marked as a fox-trot on the programme, and several of the more enthusiastic performers were waiting to get off on the stroke of time. But as the first haunting notes of the dance wailed out—they paused and hesitated. This was no fox-trot; this was—but what matter what it was? For after the first bar no one moved in the room: they stood motionless watching one couple—Lady Cynthia Stockdale and an unknown man. “Why, it’s the fellow who breeds dogs,” muttered someone to his partner, but there was no reply. She was too engrossed in watching. And as for Lady Cynthia, from the moment she felt Desmond Brooke’s arm round her, the world had become merely movement—such movement as she had never thought of before. To say that he was a perfect dancer would be idle: he was dancing itself. And the band, playing as men possessed, played for them and them only. Everything was forgotten: nothing in the world mattered save that they should go on and on and on—dancing. She was utterly unconscious of the crowd of onlookers: she didn’t know that people had left the supper-room and were thronging in at the door: she knew nothing save that she had never danced before. Dimly she realised at last that the music had stopped: dimly she heard a great roar of applause—but only dimly. It seemed to come from far away—the shouts of “Encore” seemed hazy and dream-like. They had left the ballroom, though she was hardly conscious of where he was taking her, and when he turned to her and said, “Get a wrap or something: I want to talk to you out in God’s fresh air,” she obeyed him without a word. He was waiting for her when she returned, standing motionless where she had left him. And still in silence he led the way to his car which had been left apart from all the others, almost as if he had expected to want it before the end. For a moment she hesitated, for Lady Cynthia, though utterly unconventional, was no fool. “Will you come with me?” he said gravely. “Where to?” she asked. “Up to the cliffs beyond my house. It will take ten minutes—and I want to talk to you with the sound of the sea below us.” “You had the car in readiness?” she said quietly. “For both of us—or for me alone,” he answered. “If you won’t come, then I go home. Will you come with me?” he repeated. “Yes; I will come.” He helped her into the car and wrapped a rug round her; then he climbed in beside her. And as they swung out of the little square, the strains of the next dance followed them from the open windows of the Town Hall. He drove as he danced—perfectly; and in the dim light the girl watched his clear-cut profile as he stared ahead into the glare of the headlights. Away to the right his farm flashed by, the last house before they reached the top of the cliffs. And gradually, above the thrumming of the engine, she heard the lazy boom of the big Atlantic swell on the rocks ahead. At last he stopped where the road ran parallel to the top of the cliff, and switched off the lights.