No stolen pleasure was ever more keenly enjoyed than was
that last perfect dance. Her very blood was a-fire with the strange,
intoxicating joy of life. She wanted to go on for ever.
But it ended at length. She came to earth after her rapturous flight, and
found herself standing with her partner in a curtained recess of the
ballroom from which a glass door led on to the verandah that ran round
the hotel.
"Just a glimpse of the moonlight on the mountains," he said, "before we
say good-night!"
She went with him without a moment's thought. She was as one caught in
the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed
through on to the verandah.
The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a
fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapphire. The
mountains stood in solemn grandeur, domes of white mystery. The great
vault of the sky was alight with stars, and a wonderful moon hung like a
silver shield almost in the zenith.
"How--beautiful!" breathed Dinah.
The air was crystal clear, cold but not piercing. The absolute stillness
held her spell-bound.
"It is like a dream-world," she whispered.
"In which you reign supreme," he murmured back.
She glanced at him with uncomprehending eyes. Her veins were still
throbbing with the ecstasy of the dance.
"Oh, how I wish I had wings!" she suddenly said. "To swim through that
glorious ether right above the mountain-tops as one swims through the
sea! Don't you think flying must be very like swimming?"
"With variations," said Eustace.
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