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As Mr Macgregor entered the Club gate he heard the sound of music. Yellow chinks of lantern-light
showed through the creeper that covered the tennis-screen. Mr Macgregor was in a happy mood this
evening. He had promised himself a good, long talk with Miss Lackersteen–such an exceptionally
intelligent girl, that!–and he had a most interesting anecdote to tell her (as a matter of fact, it had
already seen the light in one of those little articles of his in Blackwood’s) about a dacoity that had
happened in Sagaing in 1913. She would love to hear it, he knew. He rounded the tennis-screen
expectantly. On the court, in the mingled light of the waning moon and of lanterns slung among the
trees, Verrall and Elizabeth were dancing. The chokras had brought out chairs and a table for the
gramophone, and round these the other Europeans were sitting or standing. As Mr Macgregor halted
at the corner of the court, Verrall and Elizabeth circled round and glided past him, barely a yard
away. They were dancing very close together, her body bent backwards under his. Neither noticed Mr
Macgregor.
Mr Macgregor made his way round the court. A chilly, desolate feeling had taken possession of his
entrails. Good-bye, then, to his talk with Miss Lackersteen! It was an effort to screw his face into its
usual facetious good-humour as he came up to the table.
‘A Terpsichorean evening!’ he remarked in a voice that was doleful in spite of himself.
No one answered. They were all watching the pair on the tennis court. Utterly oblivious of the
others, Elizabeth and Verrall glided round and round, round and round, their shoes sliding easily on
the slippery concrete. Verrall danced as he rode, with matchless grace. The gramophone was playing
‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, which was dien going round the world like a pestilence and had got
as far as Burma:
Show me the way to go home,
I’m tired an’ I wanna go to bed;
I had a little drink ’bout an hour ago,
An’ it’s gone right to my head! etc.
The dreary, depressing trash floated out among the shadowy trees and the streaming scents of
flowers, over and over again, for Mrs Lackersteen was putting the gramophone needle back to the
start when it neared the centre. The moon climbed higher, very yellow, looking, as she rose from the
murk of dark clouds at the horizon, like a sick woman creeping out of bed. Verrall and Elizabeth
danced on and on, indefatigably, a pale voluptuous shape in the gloom. They moved in perfect unison
like some single animal. Mr Macgregor, Ellis, Westfield and Mr Lackersteen stood watching them,
their hands in their pockets, finding nothing to say. The mosquitoes came nibbling at their ankles.
Someone called for drinks, but the whisky was like ashes in their mouths. The bowels of all four
older men were twisted with bitter envy.
Verrall did not ask Mrs Lackersteen for a dance, nor, when he and Elizabeth finally sat down, did
he take any notice of the other Europeans. He merely monopolised Elizabeth for half an hour more,
and then with a brief good night to the Lackersteens and not a word to anyone else, left the Club. The
long dance with Verrall had left Elizabeth in a kind of dream. He had asked her to come out riding
with him! He was going to lend her one of his ponies! She never even noticed that Ellis, angered by
her behaviour, was doing his best to be openly rude. It was late when the Lackersteens got home, but