They were interrupted by another dance being called for, and then, his
fingers tapping about upon the keys as mechanically as fowls pecking at
barleycorns, Christopher gave himself up with a curious and far from
unalloyed pleasure to the occupation of watching Ethelberta, now again
crossing the field of his vision like a returned comet whose
characteristics were becoming purely historical. She was a plump-armed
creature, with a white round neck as firm as a fort--altogether a
vigorous shape, as refreshing to the eye as the green leaves through
which he beheld her. She danced freely, and with a zest that was
apparently irrespective of partners. He had been waiting long to hear
her speak, and when at length her voice did reach his ears, it was the
revelation of a strange matter to find how great a thing that small event
had become to him. He knew the old utterance--rapid but not frequent, an
obstructive thought causing sometimes a sudden halt in the midst of a
stream of words. But the features by which a cool observer would have
singled her out from others in his memory when asking himself what she
was like, was a peculiar gaze into imaginary far-away distance when
making a quiet remark to a partner--not with contracted eyes like a
seafaring man, but with an open full look--a remark in which little words
in a low tone were made to express a great deal, as several single
gentlemen afterwards found.

The production of dance-music when the criticizing stage among the
dancers has passed, and they have grown full of excitement and animal
spirits, does not require much concentration of thought in the producers
thereof; and desultory conversation accordingly went on between Faith and
her brother from time to time.

'Kit,' she said on one occasion, 'are you looking at the way in which the