On the stage, right and left, were two irregular
groups of girls, with a few men, awkwardly, Rose thought, disposed among
them. All were swaying a little to mark the rhythm of the music
industriously pounded out by a sweaty young man at the piano--a swarthy,
thick young man in his undershirt. There were a few more people, Rose
was aware without exactly looking at any of them, sprawled in different
parts of the hall, on sofas or cushioned window-seats.
It was all a little vague to her at first, because her attention was
focused on a single figure--a compact, rather slender figure, and tall,
Rose thought--of a man in a blue serge suit, who stood at the exact
center of the stage and the extreme edge of the footlights. He was
counting aloud the bars of the music--not beating time at all, nor
yielding to the rhythm in any way; standing, on the contrary, rather
tensely still. That was the quality about him, indeed, that riveted
Rose's attention and held her as still as he was, in the doorway--an
exhilarating sort of intensity that had communicated itself to the
swaying groups on the stage.
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