She played for them for a quarter of an hour. While the rest danced, the young man Jack stood beside the piano, as if he was chained to the spot. She had bewitched them all, but none so much as this man. He therefore gazed upon the girl with an admiration which certainly belonged to the old time. Indeed, I have never been able to understand how the Past could be so suddenly assumed. To admire--actually to admire--a woman, knowing all the time--it is impossible to conceal the fact--that she is your inferior, that she is inferior in strength and intellect! Well, I have already called them unfortunate men; I can say no more. How can people admire things below themselves? When she had played for a quarter of an hour or so, this young man called upon her to stop. The dancers stopped too, panting, their eyes full of light, their cheeks flushed and their lips parted. "Oh," Dorothy sighed, "I never thought to feel such happiness again. I could dance on forever." "With me?" murmured Geoffrey. "I was praying that the last round might never stop. With me?" "With you," she whispered. "Come!" cried the young man Jack. "It is too bad. Christine must dance. Play for us, Cousin Mildred, and I will give her a lesson." Mildred laughed. Then she started at the unwonted sound. The others laughed to hear it, and the walls of the Museum echoed with the laughter of girls. The old man sat up in his chair and looked around. "I thought I was at Philippe's, in Paris," he said. "I thought we were having a supper after the theatre. There was Ninette, and there was Madeleine--and--and--" He looked about him bewildered. Then he dropped his head and went to sleep again. When he was neither eating nor battling for his breath, he was always sleeping. "I am your cousin, Jack," said Mildred; "but I had long forgotten it. And as for playing--but I will try. Perhaps the old touch will return." It did. She played with far greater skill and power than the self-taught Christine, but not (as they have said since) with greater sweetness. Then Jack took Christine and gave her a first lesson. It lasted nearly half an hour. "Oh," cried the girl, when Lady Mildred stopped, "I feel as if I had been floating round in a dream. Was I a stupid pupil, Jack?" "You were the aptest pupil that dancing-master ever had." "I know now," she said, with panting breath and flushed cheeks, "what dancing means. It is wonderful that the feet should answer to the music. Surely you must have loved dancing?" "We did," the girls replied; "we did. There was no greater pleasure in the world." "Why did you give it up?" They looked at each other.