His performance with the dairyman's daughter so won upon her, that when 'Speed the Plough' was over she contrived to speak to him.
'Nic, you are to dance with me next time.' He said he would, and presently asked her in a formal public manner, lifting his hat gallantly.

She showed a little backwardness, which he quite understood, and allowed him to lead her to the top, a row of enormous length appearing below them as if by magic as soon as they had taken their places.

Truly the Squire was right when he said that they only wanted starting.
'What is it to be ?' whispered Nicholas.
She turned to the band.

'The Honeymoon,' she said.
And then they trod the delightful last-century measure of that name, which if it had been ever danced better, was never danced with more zest.
The perfect responsiveness which their tender acquaintance threw into the motions of Nicholas and his partner lent to their gyrations the fine adjustment of two interacting parts of a single machine.

The excitement of the movement carried Christine back to the time--the unreflecting passionate time, about two years before--when she and Nic had been incipient lovers only; and it made her forget the carking anxieties, the vision of social breakers ahead, that had begun to take the gilding off her position now.