She was particularly sensitive to musical impressions, and instinctively looked up to Bressant's face for sympathy, forgetting at the moment that his infirmity would probably debar him from sharing her enjoyment.

However that might be, he was certainly not indifferent to the silent music of her beauty; he was gazing down upon her with an intensity which caused her to droop her eyes, and draw an uneven breath or two.

There was in him all a man's fire, strangely mingled with the freshness of a boy.
"Take my arm," said he, offering it to her.

After an instant's hesitation, more mental, however, than physical, she laid her graceful hand within it, and they moved toward the dancing-room.
But at the instant of contact an electric pulsation seemed to pass through Cornelia's blood, imbuing it with a powerful ichor, alien to herself, yet whose potency was delicious to her.

She fancied, also, that she herself went out in the same way to her companion, establishing a magnetic interchange of personalities, so that each felt and shared the other's thoughts and emotions.
They now stood in the principal dancing-hall, where several couples, who had already taken the floor, were revolving with various degrees of awkwardness.