There is the murmur
of voices mingling two lives in one. They turn and pass proudly down
between the aisles of wondering festal faces. Ah! the circle is drawing
closer. One more quick whirl to keep them back, O flying skirt and
dainty-winged feet! Too late! The music stops. The tawdry walls shut in
again, the vulgar crowds return, they stand pale and quiet, the centre
of a ring of breathless admiring, frightened, or forbidding faces. Her
arms fold like wings at her side. The waltz is over.
A shrill feminine chorus assail her with praises, struck here and
there with a metallic ring of envy; a dozen all-daring cavaliers, made
reckless by her grace and beauty, clamor for her hand in the next waltz.
She replies, not to them, but to him, "Not again," and slips away in
the crowd with that strange new shyness that of all her transformations
seems the most delicious. Yet so conscious are they of their mutual
passion that they do not miss each other, and he turns away as if their
next meeting were already an appointed tryst.
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