“My word!” said Mr. Direck.  “To think I’d be dancing.”

But he said no more because he needed his breath.

He liked it, and he had another attempt with one of the visitor daughters, who danced rather more formally, and then Teddy took the pianola and Mr. Direck was astonished by the spectacle of an eminent British thinker in a whirl of black velvet and extremely active black legs engaged in a kind of Apache dance in pursuit of the visitor wife.  In which Mr. Lawrence Carmine suddenly mingled.

“In Germany,” said Herr Heinrich, “we do not dance like this.  It could not be considered seemly.  But it is very pleasant.”

And then there was a waltz, and Herr Heinrich bowed to and took the visitor wife round three times, and returned her very punctually and exactly to the point whence he had taken her, and the Indian young gentleman (who must not be called “coloured”) waltzed very well with Cecily.  Mr. Direck tried to take a tolerant European view of this brown and white combination.  But he secured her as soon as possible from this Asiatic entanglement, and danced with her again, and then he danced with her again.

“Come and look at the moonlight,” cried Mrs. Britling.

And presently Mr. Direck found himself strolling through the rose garden with Cecily.  She had the sweetest moonlight face, her white shining robe made her a thing of moonlight altogether.  If Mr. Direck had not been in love with her before he was now altogether in love.  Mamie Nelson, whose freakish unkindness had been rankling like a poisoned thorn in his heart all the way from Massachusetts, suddenly became Ancient History.

A tremendous desire for eloquence arose in Mr. Direck’s soul, a desire so tremendous that no conceivable phrase he could imagine satisfied it.  So he remained tongue-tied.  And Cecily was tongue-tied, too.  The scent of the roses just tinted the clear sweetness of the air they breathed.

Mr. Direck’s mood was an immense solemnity, like a dark ocean beneath the vast dome of the sky, and something quivered in every fibre of his being, like moonlit ripples on the sea.  He felt at the same time a portentous stillness and an immense enterprise....

Then suddenly the pianola, pounding a cake walk, burst out into ribald invitation....

“Come back to dance!” cried Cecily, like one from whom a spell has just been broken.  And Mr. Direck, snatching at a vanishing scrap of everything he had not said, remarked, “I shall never forget this evening.”

She did not seem to hear that.

They danced together again.  And then Mr. Direck danced with the visitor lady, whose name he had never heard.  And then he danced with Mrs. Britling, and then he danced with Letty.  And then it seemed time for him to look for Miss Cecily again.

And so the cheerful evening passed until they were within a quarter of an hour of Sunday morning.  Mrs. Britling went to exert a restraining influence upon the pianola.