With the gates of good-nature opened, a veritable flood of gaiety burst out.

It glittered in their eyes, it rose to their lips in a wild laughter.

They seemed to be dancing more furiously fast in order to forget the life which they had left, and to which they must return.
These were the conquerors of the bitter nature of the mountain-desert.
There was beauty here, the beauty of strength in the men and a brown loveliness in the girls; just as in the music, the blatancy of the rattling dish-pan and the blaring trombone were more than balanced by the real skill of the violinists, who kept a high, sweet, singing tone through all the clamor.
And Pierre le Rouge and Jacqueline?
They stood aghast for a moment when that crash of noise broke around them; but they came from a life where there was nothing of beauty except the lonely strength of the mountains and the appalling silences of the stars that roll above the desert.

Almost at once they caught the overtone of human joyousness, and they turned with smiles to each other, and it was "Pierre ?" "Jack ?" Then a nod, and she was in his arms, and they glided into the dance..