“She’s just thirty,” announced Billy, in shrill, cracked tones.  “She’s just pretending to be young to-night, but she ain’t young really.  You should see her without her warpaint.”

The music became somewhat more audible at this point.  Eustace bent slightly, looking down at the girl with eyes that were suddenly soft as velvet.  “They are beginning to dance,” he said.  “May I have the pleasure?  It’s a pity to lose time.”

Her red lips smiled delighted assent.  She laid her hand with a feathery touch upon the arm he offered.  “Oh, how lovely!” she said, and slid into his hold like a giddy little water-fowl taking to its own beloved element.

“Well, I’m jiggered!” said Billy.  “And she’s never danced with a man—­except of course me—­before!”

“Live and learn!” said Scott.

He watched the couple go up the great room, and he saw that, as he had suspected, Dinah was an exquisite dancer.  Her whole being was merged in movement.  She was as an instrument in the hand of a skilled player.

Sir Eustace Studley was an excellent dancer too, though he did not often trouble himself to dance as perfectly as he was dancing now.  It was not often that he had a partner worthy of his best, and it was a semi-conscious habit of his never voluntarily to give better than he received.

But this little gipsy-girl of Scott’s discovery called forth all his talent.  She did not want to talk.  She only wanted to dance, to spend herself in a passion of dancing that was an ecstasy beyond all speech.  She was as sensitive as a harp-string to his touch; she was music, she was poetry, she was charm.  The witchery of her began to possess him.  Her instant response to his mood, her almost uncanny interpretation thereof, became like a spell to his senses.  From wonder he passed to delight, and from delight to an almost feverish desire for more.  He swayed her to his will with a well-nigh savage exultation, and she gave herself up to it so completely, so freely, so unerringly, that it was as if her very individuality had melted in some subtle fashion and become part of his.  And to the man there came a moment of sheer intoxication, as though he drank and drank of a sparkling, inspiriting wine that lured him, that thrilled him, that enslaved him.

It was just when the sensation had reached its height that the music suddenly quickened for the finish.  That brought him very effectually to earth.  He ceased to dance and led her aside.

She turned her bright face to him for a moment, in her eyes the dazed, incredulous look of one awaking from an enthralling dream.  “Oh, can’t we dance it out?” she said, as if she pleaded against being aroused.

He shook his head.  “I never dance to a finish.  It’s too much like the clown’s turn after the transformation scene.  It is bathos on the top of the superb.  At least it would be in this case.  Who in wonder taught you to dance like that?”