theatre was an ANNEXE to the ball-room. It was the young folk who began
it, but older ladies joined in, and all the men but the
hardened sportsmen, who saw a chance to sneak to their snuggery and
gun-talk before the time. The really old women, obviously past their
dancing days, sat around, and looked on and gossiped to one another.
And for a time Deb sat with them.

She was certainly tired--for her--and the fact struck her that she
had not danced for a long time. She had shirked balls, having only too
many entertainments to choose from. She thought it likely that she
would be stiff and heavy on her feet from want of practice--a horrible
idea to her, who had once danced like a feather in the wind. A good
stone had been added to her weight since she had last waltzed with
satisfaction to herself; that also was not a pleasing thought. So when
her dinner lord essayed to entice her, she shook her head. A dozen
other men, and the cream of them too--there was comfort in that--
followed his example, and made her charming compliments when she said
laughingly that she was "too old for these frivolities".

"Too old--gracious heavens!" they apostrophised space. It was
heart-warming to hear them.

But they went off easily, and were soon dancing with the young girls--
sylphs as airy and agile as she had once been. And by degrees she drew
apart from the old ladies and their talk, which she hated to seem, even
to herself, to belong to, and presently found herself in the
extraordinary position of sitting alone. She leaned back in her chair,
and with eyes half shut, looked at the whirling couples, and dreamed of
the days--the dances--the youth--that were no more.