“Have you finished your cribbage?” she asked, with hasty evasion of him. “Yes,” he replied. “Aren’t you getting tired of dancing?” “Not a bit,” she said. “Not she,” said Adams heartily. “No girl with any spirit gets tired of dancing.—Have something else, Elsie. Come—sherry. Have a glass of sherry with us, Whiston.” Whilst they sipped the wine, Adams watched Whiston almost cunningly, to find his advantage. “We’d better be getting back—there’s the music,” he said. “See the women get something to eat, Whiston, will you, there’s a good chap.” And he began to draw away. Elsie was drifting helplessly with him. But Whiston put himself beside them, and went along with them. In silence they passed through to the dancing-room. There Adams hesitated, and looked round the room. It was as if he could not see. A man came hurrying forward, claiming Elsie, and Adams went to his other partner. Whiston stood watching during the dance. She was conscious of him standing there observant of her, like a ghost, or a judgment, or a guardian angel. She was also conscious, much more intimately and impersonally, of the body of the other man moving somewhere in the room. She still belonged to him, but a feeling of distraction possessed her, and helplessness. Adams danced on, adhering to Elsie, waiting his time, with the persistence of cynicism. The dance was over. Adams was detained. Elsie found herself beside Whiston. There was something shapely about him as he sat, about his knees and his distinct figure, that she clung to. It was as if he had enduring form. She put her hand on his knee. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked. “_Ever_ so,” she replied, with a fervent, yet detached tone. “It’s going on for one o’clock,” he said. “Is it?” she answered. It meant nothing to her. “Should we be going?” he said. She was silent. For the first time for an hour or more an inkling of her normal consciousness returned. She resented it. “What for?” she said. “I thought you might have had enough,” he said. A slight soberness came over her, an irritation at being frustrated of her illusion. “Why?” she said. “We’ve been here since nine,” he said. That was no answer, no reason. It conveyed nothing to her. She sat detached from him. Across the room Sam Adams glanced at her. She sat there exposed for him. “You don’t want to be too free with Sam Adams,” said Whiston cautiously, suffering. “You know what he is.” “How, free?” she asked. “Why—you don’t want to have too much to do with him.” She sat silent. He was forcing her into consciousness of her position. But he could not get hold of her feelings, to change them. She had a curious, perverse desire that he should not. “I like him,” she said. “What do you find to like in him?” he said, with a hot heart. “I don’t know—but I like him,” she said.