Elmer lisped his words when his speech was approaching laughter and his tongue kissed his upper teeth sweetly in the confusion of his words. He liked Dorine, and he would tell Ellen of his liking, holding back from his wish, curious of it and reticent, swearing Ellen to keep secret all his confidences. In the telling he would live again his scenes with Dorine, wondering over her, over her likes, her ways, her speeches, dwelling on every least inflection of her voice in recounting her sallies. For him, Ellen’s kiss in the game was easy and light, intimate and light, the reflector of summer and of herself in moods of play. It was the frivolous quirk of her dress in the dance, the fleeting pose of a body in momentary attitudes. Her laughter with Elmer was carried from one meeting to the next, always near the surface of their being, and for his leading she stepped wantonly in the quadrille and beat the rhythms with her head and shoulders. Or for Mr Townley, who was identified with his music, her manner was an extension of the ripple of her dress, and when she went dancing down his guitar notes between their eyes passed the flash of all laughter, music and dancing made one in the moment, each chord a thread or a ribbon on which she walked with light feet as she twinkled down the dancing floor. His wife with their many children would be standing along the wall. Dorine on her side would tell the confidences of her liking for Elmer, dwelling on each to relive its significance, so that their two likings and wishes, Elmer’s reticent and unformed, Dorine’s eager, unshy, realised, flowed over her and around her as if she were its musical core. With Elmer she made laughter, each complementing the other, each playing a little with the fountain of his own need. In their kiss the froth of the high tide of summer arose and frayed. It was as if they sang a come-hither-come-hither to all the summer and all the countryside.