The crowder slackened speed for a second, to give warning, and dashed
into the heel-and-toe. Zeb caught the light in the dancer's eyes, and
still frowning, drew a long breath.

"Faster," nodded the stranger to the musicians' corner.

Then came the moment for which, by this time, Zeb was longing.
The stranger rested with heels together while a man might count eight
rapidly, and suddenly began a step the like of which none present had
ever witnessed, Above the hips his body swayed steadily, softly, to the
measure; his eyes never took their pleasant smile off Zeb's face, but
his feet--

The steel buckles had become two sparkling moths, spinning, poising,
darting. They no longer belonged to the man, but had taken separate
life: and merely the absolute symmetry of their loops and circles, and
the _click-click-click_ on boards, regular as ever, told of the art that
informed them.

"Faster!"

They crossed and re-crossed now like small flashes of lightning, or as
if the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every touch of
the man's heel.

"Faster!"

They seemed suddenly to catch the light out of every sconce, and knead
it into a ball of fire, that spun and yet was motionless, in the very
middle of the floor, while all the rest of the room grew suddenly