whirling flash of consciousness are changed to an altar, seen dimly
through the bridal veil that covers her fair head. 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. A few congratulate him on
his skill. Johnny's paragon looks after him curiously; certain
elders shake hands with him perplexedly, as if not quite sure of the
professional consistency of his performance. Those charming tide-waiters
on social success, the fair, artfully mingling expectation with
compliment, only extract from him the laughing statement that this
one waltz was the single exception allowed him from the rule of his
professional conduct, and he refers them to his elder critics. A single
face, loutish, looming, and vindictive, stands on among the crowd--the
face of Seth Davis. He had not seen him since he left the school; he had
forgotten his existence; even now he only remembered his successor, Joe
Masters, and he looked curiously around to see if that later suitor of
Cressy's was present. It was not until he reached the door that he began