They strolled together amicably, following the doublings and twists of the path, meeting or overtaking other couples and overhearing now some scrap of conversation, some interchange of personalities from behind a screen of trees or the depths of an occasional arbour. Their cigarette ends glowing and fading preceded them like a pair of luminous noses, and equidistant spots of fire advertised that other pairs of Dongs were promenading solemnly. ‘How ridiculous!’ laughed James Milton at the music, in sudden elation. He had not been to a dance for years, he had forsaken even Christmas parties because they made him feel avuncular: all this was new to him. Eileen, who thought this was the dreariest dance she had ever been at, a travesty of all that was highest in human enjoyment, was as near depression as the Lawrences ever descended, and replied: ‘Yes, it’s pretty futile, isn’t it? I suppose the dowagers are enjoying it. Shall we go in?’

Milton, who had been taking a keener pleasure than she understood in her nearness in the intimacy of the darkness, actually laid a hand on her arm to detain her. He entreated, ‘Not till the end of this dance!’

His unwillingness to give her up was not decreased by a sharp irritation that she with her white arms and her attractiveness – which he was conscious of as something as material as phosphorescence, in which he could have dipped a finger curiously – should have stopped short at being Eileen Lawrence. He was convinced that if she had been anybody else, say Sydney (now dancing, indifferent, in the room above), the situation would have had a key for him, and he chafed with indignant longing. ‘I say, Eileen ——’ he began and, determined to understand himself, reached out a hand for her.

‘Well?’ challenged Eileen, and they stared at the greyish blots of one another’s faces in the darkness. After a moment her expectancy broke into laughter. ‘I really thought,’ said she, ‘that you were going to kiss me.’