The charm of dancing, although nothing is easier than to experience it,
is something that eludes statement. It is the language of the body,
graceful and significant. It has that in it which will make it live and
be loved so long as men and women exist as such. The fascination of the
motion, the magic of the music, the hour, the lights; the nearness, the
touch of hands, the leaning, the support, the starting off in fresh
bewilderments; the trilling down the gamut of the hall; the pauses and
recommencements; even the little incidents of collision and escape; the
trips, slips, and quick recoveries; the breathless words whispered in
the ear, and the laughter; the dropped handkerchief, the crushed fan,
the faithless hair-pin--these, and a thousand more such small elements,
make dancing imperishable.
Presently--and it might have been after a minute or an hour, for all
they could have told--Bressant and Cornelia awoke to a sense of four
bare walls, papered with a pattern of abominable regularity, a floor of
rough and unwaxed boards, a panting crowd of country girls and bumpkins.
The music had ceased, and nothing remained in its place save a fiddle, a
harp, and an inferior piano.
"Come out to the door!" said Bressant, "the air here is not fit for us
to breathe.
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