All the arms, extended and raised, agitate themselves in the air, rise or fall with pretty, cadenced motions following the oscillations of bodies.
The rope soled sandals make this dance silent and infinitely light; one hears only the frou-frou of gowns, and ever the snap of fingers imitating the noise of castanets.

With a Spanish grace, the girls, whose wide sleeves expand like wings, swing their tightened waists above their vigorous and supple hips-- Facing one another, Ramuntcho and Gracieuse said nothing at first, captivated by the childish joy of moving quickly in cadence, to the sound of music.

It is very chaste, that manner of dancing without the slightest touch of bodies.
But there were also, in the course of the evening, waltzes and quadrilles, and even walks arm-in-arm during which the lovers could touch each other and talk.
"Then, my Ramuntcho," said Gracieuse, "it is of that game that you expect to make your future, is it not ?" They were walking now arm-in-arm, under the plane-trees shedding their leaves in the night of November, lukewarm as a night of May, during an interval of silence when the musicians were resting.
"Yes," replied Ramuntcho, "in our country it is a trade, like any other, where one may earn a living, as long as strength lasts--and one may go from time to time to South America, you know, as Irun and Gorosteguy have done, and bring back twenty, thirty thousand francs for a season, earned honestly at Buenos Ayres." "Oh, the Americas--" exclaimed Gracieuse in a joyful enthusiasm--"the Americas, what happiness! It was always my wish to go across the sea to those countries!--And we would look for your uncle Ignacio, then go to my cousin, Bidegaina, who has a farm on the Uruguay, in the prairies--" She ceased talking, the little girl who had never gone out of that village which the mountains enclose; she stopped to think of these far-off lands which haunted her young head because she had, like most Basques, nomadic ancestors--folks who are called here Americans or Indians, who pass their adventurous lives on the other side of the ocean and return to the cherished village only very late, to die.

And, while she dreamed, her nose in the air, her eyes in the black of the clouds and of the summits, Ramuntcho felt his blood running faster, his heart beating quicker in the intense joy of what she had just said so spontaneously.

And, inclining his head toward her, he asked, as if to jest, in a voice infinitely soft and childish: "We would go?
Is that what you said: we would go, you with me?
This signifies therefore that you would consent, a little later, when we become of age, to marry me ?" He perceived through the darkness the gentle black light of Gracieuse's eyes, which rose toward him with an expression of astonishment and of reproach.
"Then--you did not know ?" "I wanted to make you say it, you see--You had never said it to me, do you know?
--" He held tighter the arm of his little betrothed and their walk became slower.