"Once round," Percy had suggested; "once round," her mother had said.

They had been ten, twenty, thirty times round; they had never stopped to rest like other dancers; they had centered the eyes of the whole room on them--including the eyes of Captain Bervie--without knowing it; her delicately pale complexion had changed to rosy-red; the neat arrangement of her hair had become disturbed; her bosom was rising and falling faster and faster in the effort to breathe--before fatigue and heat overpowered her at last, and forced her to say to him faintly, "I'm very sorry--I can't dance any more!" Percy led her into the cooler atmosphere of the refreshment-room, and revived her with a glass of lemonade.

Her arm still rested on his--she was just about to thank him for the care he had taken of her--when Captain Bervie entered the room.
"Mrs.Bowmore wishes me to take you back to her," he said to Charlotte.
Then, turning to Percy, he added: "Will you kindly wait here while I take Miss Bowmore to the ballroom?
I have a word to say to you--I will return directly." The Captain spoke with perfect politeness--but his face betrayed him.

It was pale with the sinister whiteness of suppressed rage.
Percy sat down to cool and rest himself.

With his experience of the ways of men, he felt no surprise at the marked contrast between Captain Bervie's face and Captain Bervie's manner.