The music had flowed into Cornelia's ears until she was full of the rhythmical harmony.

She glanced up once more at her partner, this time with a lustrous look of confidence.

Was it possible that he had become inspired through her?
Certainly it seemed as if the feeling of the tune were discernible in his face as well as hers; it was even betokened by the lightsome pose of his figure, and a scarcely subdued buoyancy in his step.

Moment by moment did the occult sympathy between one another and the cadence of the music grow more assured and complete; and at length--though precisely how it came about neither Cornelia nor Bressant could have told--they were conscious of floating through the room, mutually supporting and leading on each other, mind and motion pulsating with the beat of the tune, amid a bright, half-seen chaos of lights, faces, and forms, dancing a waltz! Neither felt any surprise at what, but a few moments before, both would have deemed an impossibility.

The easy, whirling sweep of the motion, not ending nor beginning, seemed, to Bressant as well as to Cornelia, the most natural thing in the world.