Teresa was thinking, “The present frozen into the past—that is art. At this moment things are looking as if they were the past. That is why I am feeling as if I were having an adventure—because the present and the past have become one.”
“Beastly noise! It reminds me of the dentist.”
“_Très entraînant_—as the deaf _bourgeoise_ said after having listened to the Dead March in _Saul_,” said Guy; he had suddenly invented this Sam Wellerism in the middle of the tune, and had hardly been able to wait till the end to come out with it.
Then Anna put on a fox-trot, and Rory and Concha, Arnold and Guy, in the narrow space between the billiard-table and gramophone, hopped and wriggled and jumped—one could not call it dancing.
“Now then, Munroe,” cried Rory, when it was over, “You’re such hot stuff at billiards—let’s see what you can do on the light fantastic.”
“Yes, do, Mr. Munroe,” and Concha stood swaying before him, flushed and provocative.
“I’m afraid ... I don’t ... well, if you’ve got a tango here ... I used to try my hand at it in Africa.”
“Let’s see ... put on the _Tango de Rêve_, Anna. Got it?”
David hesitated a moment; then, as if coming to a sudden resolution, he clasped her, and stood waiting for the bar to end; then they began to dance, and their souls seemed to leave their bodies, leaving them empty to the tune, which gradually informed them till they and it were one; a few short steps, then a breathless halt, a few more steps, another halt ... then letting themselves go a little, then another halt; their faces tense and mask-like ... truly a strange dance, the Tango, speaking the broken, taciturn, language of passion:
Thanked be fortune: it hath been otherwise: Twenty times better; but once especial In thin array: after a pleasant guise, When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall, And she me caught in her arms long and small....
Grrr ... went the gramophone—the spell was snapt.
“Bravo!” cried the audience, clapping; while ’Snice began to bark, and the children to jump up and down and squeal.
“You dance _divinely_!” cried Concha, flushed and laughing.
David blushed, frowned, muttered something inaudible, and left the room.
“Hot stuff!” said Rory; and they settled down to desultory, frivolous, Anglo-Saxon chatter—not unlike fox-trots, thought Teresa.