She ran ahead of him, found a corner for them both, and then, pushing him on to a sofa, twisted round in front of him, turning on her toes, flashing laughter at him, sitting down at last beside him, and then kissing him. "Oh, my dear! I'm so glad," he said. "I thought you were miserable." "So I was--at first--perfectly wretched. Now it's all splendid--glorious!" This was to him an entirely new Rachel. In her movement, her excitement, her immediate glad acceptance of the life that an hour ago she had feared with such alarm, he perceived an element that was indeed foreign to all things Beaminster. And this new attitude reminded him with renewed sharpness that he could not now hope to hold the old Rachel with the intimate affection that had been his before. She was slipping from him--slipping ... even as he watched her, she was going. She laid her hand upon his arm: "Uncle John, I'm a success! I am really. I can dance, dance beautifully! I can put these young men in their places. They're frightened!... really frightened." "Of course--you're lovely--the biggest success there's ever been. But what was the matter with you at dinner?" "Yes. Wasn't that dreadful? Everything went wrong, and the only thing I could think of was how glad grandmamma would be. I had a kind of paralysis." Uncle John nodded his head. "I know exactly what it's like." "Well, I shall never let myself be so stupid again--never! I swear it!" They sat in silence for some time, she, restless, straining towards the music, he a little overcome by her happiness. There was a pause between the dances and then the band began once more. "Have you danced with Roddy Seddon yet?" "No. What's he like?" "Oh! he's nice--you'll like him." "I don't expect to. He's a friend of grandmamma's. Hark! There's the band again!... Come along, back we go!" Smiling, radiant, she hung upon his arm. Afterwards, standing in a doorway, he watched her. He sighed. "What a selfish old pig I am!... But she'll never be mine again." IV Uncle John held only for a moment Rachel's attention. No single person now, but rather a gorgeous pattern that the whole evening was weaving about her. She saw the lights, she heard the music, she felt the movement of her body, she gathered through a haze of happiness the faces of her uncles and Aunt Adela and others whom she knew, but now for the first time in her life she knew what happiness, happiness without thought, or doubt, or foreboding could be. Thus it was that she came to Roddy Seddon, who was certainly enjoying himself: this, however, was not the first ball of his life nor even, if all the truth were known, his best. He had expected it to be solemn and sedate--you could not hope to find here the jolly kind of dance that they had had at the Menets', for instance, last week; that would not be possible in a Beaminster household.