Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table (he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just displayed on the bandstand. He really worked hard. He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any pleasure. So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager." His round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather prim gravity. The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at him in kindly approval. He noticed that she danced several times with the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very good friends. At last number twelve showed on the bandstand. Eloquent was not very clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went to her to claim it. It came just before the supper dances. "Yes, this is our dance," said Mary, "shall we one-step for a change?" "It seems to me," said Eloquent mournfully, "that one does nothing but change all the time. Now this is a waltz, how can you one-step to a waltz?" "Poor man," Mary remarked pityingly. "It _is_ muddling if you're not used to it. Let us waltz then, that will be a change." Once round the room they went, and Eloquent felt that never before had he realised the true delight of dancing. He was very careful, very accurate, and his partner set herself to imitate exactly his archaic style of dancing, so that they were a model of deportment to the whole room. But it was only for a brief space that this poetry of motion was vouchsafed to him. Mary stopped. "Do you see," she asked, "that old lady near the band. She has been sitting there quite alone all the evening and she must be dying for something to eat. Don't you think you'd better take her to have some refreshment?" "No," said Eloquent decidedly, "not just now. I've been dancing with all sorts of people with whom I didn't in the least desire to dance solely because you said I ought, and now I'm dancing with you and I'm not going to give it up. May we go on again?" Again they waltzed solemnly round. Again Eloquent felt the thrill that always accompanies a perfect achievement. Again Mary stopped. "That old lady is really very much on my conscience," she said; "if you won't take her in to have some supper, I must get Reggie, he'd do it." "But why now?" Eloquent pleaded. "If, as you say, she has sat there all night, a few minutes more or less can make no difference--why should we spoil our dance by worrying about her? Do you know her?"