The boy had just parted from a girl a good deal older than himself, who had nodded to him a rather patronizing farewell, as she glided back into the dance with a much decorated Major.
"These pre-war girls are rather dusty, aren't they ?" said the boy angrily to his partner.
"You mean they give themselves airs?
Well, what does it matter?
It's _we_ who have the good time now!" said the little creature beside him, a fairy in filmy white, dancing about him as she spoke, hardly able to keep her feet still for a moment, life and pleasure in every limb.
The two soldiers--both fathers--smiled at each other.

Then Helena came down the room, a vision of spring, with pale green floating about her, and apple-blossoms in her brown hair.

She was dancing with Geoffrey French, and both were dancing with remarkable stateliness and grace to some Czech music, imposed upon the band by Helena, who had given her particular friends instruction on the lawn that afternoon in some of the steps that fitted it.

They passed with the admiring or envious eyes of the room upon them, and disappeared through the window leading to the lawn.

For on the smooth-shaven turf of the lawn there was supplementary dancing, while the band in the conservatory, with all barriers removed, was playing both for the inside and outside revellers.
Peter Dale was sitting out on the terrace over-looking the principal lawn with the daughter of Lady Mary Chance, a rather pretty but stupid girl, with a genius for social blunders.