"Oh, come," she said, "let's just run down a few minutes and peep in; Lilian wants to see, and I'll send word in, sidewise, that will bring somebody out with a jump."
They seized their wraps and started, Archer gallantly tendering his arm to the commander's wife, but she would none of it. "Nonsense! I've got to pilot _you_! That walk is steep and crooked and pitch dark when you get among the cedars. I want to chat with Mrs. Archer," and the old soldier thanked her in his heart. More than ever before he wished to have that arm about his own little girl this night. Was it possible she too felt the premonition that had come to him? Had her mother, after all, told her of the little hints they had received? Something had come. He could swear it. Something to make her strangely silent, but eager, fluttering, nervous--something that prompted her as they neared the building, and the little hand clinging to her father's arm shook with strange excitement, to bend forward close to their friend and hostess, and just as the latter was about to hail some young officer on the steps, Lilian interposed. "Oh--please," was all she said, but her fingers had caught the fluttering fold of the mantle, and Mrs. Crook turned at once. "You'd rather not?" she asked, with quick, sympathetic understanding. "I won't then. Plenty of time. Let's watch the dance first."
And so saying she had marshalled them close to the southward windows, Lilian and her father at the near-most, she and Mrs. Archer going on to the next.
It was Keler Beler's "Am Schoenen Rhein" they were playing at the moment, with its sweet, weird, luring, mournful, warning Lorelei _motif_ dominating in the waltz measure, and, with parted lips and clinging to her father's side, Lilian stood close to the window and looked and listened, saying not one word. There were but three couples dancing at the moment. There might as well have been but one for, within the hall and without, the eyes of all seemed fastened on that. Some strange caprice had prompted Evelyn Darrah to wear black that night--a grenadine, with cobweb lace and glinting spangles and sweeping train, the bodice cut low and displaying her shapely arms and neck and shoulders, enhancing the grace of her tall and slender form. Her dark hair was coiled in masses, yet here and there a curl or tendril fell upon the soft, polished skin, or floated about cheek and temple. Her eyelids, heavily lashed, veiled her downcast eyes. Her coral lips were slightly parted. Her almost queenly head was bowed as though to incline that little ear to catch the words he was eagerly pouring into it. Not a vestige of a smile was on either face, each was dark, sombre, beautiful, absorbed. His handsome head was bowed until the curling mustache swept her rounded, flushing cheek. In exquisite rhythm and harmony the two tall, graceful forms swayed in unison with the exquisite love music, every step, every motion perfectly attuned. It seemed as though no guiding were necessary. Slowly gliding, turning, reversing, he in his faultless uniform, she in her sweeping, diaphanous sable, seemed, without effort or the faintest exertion, fairly floating upon air. No wonder they sat or stood and gazed--these elders along the bordering benches--these others among the dancers--these few, wordless, at the windows. Then, with the Lorelei melody lingering to the last, the sweet, sad music died away and the waltz was ended. People began to move toward the doorway. "They're going for their bite and sup," said Mrs. Crook. "See, there go the bandsmen. Shall--_we_?"