He watched the dancing couples through the windows with the impotent
yearning of the cripple; the voluptuous rhythm of the waltz thrilled
him through and through.
"All alone and lost in dreams?" said a voice suddenly. "Why aren't you
dancing?"
"Why aren't you?" he replied, looking up.
"Because I am plain and nobody asked me to," she answered.
He looked at her. They had known each other for some time, but he had
never studied her features. She was exquisitely dressed, and in her
eyes lay an expression of infinite pain, the pain of despair and vain
revolt against the injustice of nature; he felt a lively sympathy for
her.
"I, too, am scorned by everybody," he said. "All the rights belong to
the officers. Whenever it is a question of natural selection, right is
on the side of the strong and the beautiful. Look at their shoulders
and epaulettes...."
"How can you talk like that!"
"I beg your pardon! To have to play a losing game makes a man bitter!
Will you give me a dance?"
"For pity's sake?"
"Yes! Out of compassion for me!"
He threw away his cigar.
"Have you ever known what it means to be marked by the hand of fate,
and rejected? To be always the last?" he began again, passionately.
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