and this unconscious reminder of their first days together used to stir tenderness. Now he thought of Fidelia, warm, all alive but following, docile to him.
Alice tried to talk. She said: "Don't you like the music?" He replied: "It's great."
They might be strangers, he and she who had shared three and a half years so closely, who had come to believe they were meant for each other and so had been preparing to marry on the twenty-second of June.
She felt him trying to rouse her; and, responding, she tried to satisfy him; then she ceased to try. She realized: "It's no use; I can't be Fidelia."
She dragged in the dance which become more and more unendurable. They danced near Fidelia who now had Roy Wheen for a partner. He was not a good dancer but Fidelia was doing well with him; he was flushed and excited. "He's happy," Alice thought; and this sight of them seemed to deny Myra's story that Roy Wheen "knew" something about Fidelia and that she was afraid of him and that was why he was here. Nothing in Fidelia's manner suggested the forced or perfunctory with Roy Wheen or hinted at fear. Fidelia seemed to be having a good time, too.
Alice thought: "But you can't tell anything about her." And feeling that Dave ceased to try to rouse her and that he did not care, Alice suddenly had a wild, insane impulse to make a scene; for the instant it shook her; it seemed that it must conquer her and she must drop David's hand and thrust his arm from about her and she must step to Roy Wheen and stop Fidelia and him from dancing, stop everybody from
