The big wings rustled, swayed, started to move slowly back and forth to the pounding measure of the muffled bass. Back on the drum thump--forward on the twinkle of the cymbal--arms pumping faster, stronger, with each beat, while the bass jumped the tempo and the cymbals turned from tinkles to a crash. The clarinet slid up and off the top of a final run; the piano faded slowly to a hush; the bongos fell in line behind the bass and cymbals. Then they stopped. For one measure there was silence from them all. The single sound in the crowded room was the flapping beat of the great gauze wings. Drums crashed--like the surf, like thunder, like an earthquake, like a bursting dam. With a final sweep of wing-width, Lisa leaped forward, beating and fluttering, beating with the arm-wings, a-flutter in a mist of multi-hued chiffon--leaped out and downward, turning and twisting with the slowing slant of the widespread wings. From the midstage high riser down to the floor, she floated like a dragonfly, drifted like a leaf. She landed like a bright bird fallen to earth, in a deep crouch. Then with the final cymbal-clang she thrust upward, outstretched on toetips, arms back and open, head proud and lifted, her whole face brilliant with the afterglow of music, of dancing, of climbing, of flight down to earth. * * * * * They clustered around her, smiling and cheering. Somebody stayed at the bongos, tapping out a light-mood intricate rhythm. Someone else went to the piano, and began to mesh trills with the bongo jokes. Two of the men lifted the dancer--veils, wings, and radiance--onto their shoulders and paraded her around the practice room. In the deep armchairs shoved back to the wall, three couples sat in intertwined delight, watching, clapping, cheering the impromptu, cakewalk-conga-line that followed the accolade around the room. Two women went out quietly and returned with a wheeled cart of sandwiches, cool bottles, frosted glasses, coffee and cakes. The men put down the dancer and claimed their own girls from the cart. One pair took over an armchair vacated by a dreamy couple who left the party, holding each other’s waists with secret smiles. Other pairs settled down, or wandered off. A crowd around the cart sorted out into more couples, and at last left a mixed group, six or eight, perhaps, standing and laughing and eating, drinking, unpaired yet. Lee gobbled shamelessly, suddenly famished. She sat alone in the midst of the small group, watching, delighted, as the joy of her climb and fall spread to all the rest. The darkhaired doctor stood a pace apart, just outside the laughing group, watching _her_. The hunger in his eyes found no matching thirst in hers; it flickered, and died. The group remaining settled down to shop talk. Lisa left; Phil went with her. At the door of her room she turned and smiled that marvelous marvelling radiance. “They felt it, Phil,” she said. “They felt it _with_ me!”