Suddenly Sylvia saw a man in evening dress pushing his way in their direction, regardless of what ribbons he tore or toes he outraged in his transit. He was a young man of about twenty-three or twenty-four, with a countenance in which eagerness was curiously mixed with impassivity. Sylvia saw him as one sees a picture on first entering a gallery, which one postpones visiting with a scarcely conscious and yet perfectly deliberate anticipation of pleasure later on. She continued talking to Lily, who had her back to the new-comer; while she talked she was aware that all her own attention was fixed upon this new-comer and that she was asking herself the cause of the contradictions in his face and deciding that it was due to the finely carved immobile mouth beneath such eager eyes. Were they brown or blue? The young man had reached them, and from that immobile mouth came in accents that were almost like despair a salutation to Lily. Sylvia felt for a moment as if she had been wounded; she saw that Lily was looking at her with that expression she always put on when she thought Sylvia was angry with her; then after what seemed an age turned round slowly to the young man and, lifting her mask, engaged in conversation with him. Sylvia felt that she was trespassing upon the borders of great emotion and withdrew out of hearing, until Lily beckoned her forward to introduce the young man as Mr. Michael Fane. Sylvia did not raise her mask, and after nodding to him again retired from the conversation. "But this is absurd," she said to herself, after a while; and abruptly raising her mask she broke in upon the duologue. The music had begun. He was asking Lily to dance, and she, waiting for Sylvia's leave in a way that made Sylvia want to slap her, was hesitating. "What rot, Lily!" she exclaimed, impatiently. "Of course you may dance." The young man turned toward Sylvia and smiled. A moment later he and Lily had waltzed away. "Good God!" said Sylvia to herself. "Am I going mad? A youth smiles at me and I feel inclined to cry. What is this waltz they're playing?" She looked at one of the sheets of music, but the name was nowhere legible, and she nearly snatched it away from the player in exasperation. Nothing seemed to matter in the world except that she should know the name of this waltz. Without thinking what she was doing she thumped the clarinet-player on the shoulder, who stopped indignantly and asked if she was trying to knock his teeth out. "What waltz are you playing? What waltz are you playing?" "'Waltz Amarousse.' Perhaps you'll punch one of the strings next time, miss?" "Happy New-Year," Sylvia laughed, and the clarinet-player with a disgusted glance turned round to his music again.