dark eyes began to swathe her

After the lancers there was a waltz; after the waltz a polka;and then a terrible thing happened; the music, which had beensounding regularly with five-minute pauses, stopped suddenly. 　　The lady with the great dark eyes began to swathe her violinin silk, and the gentleman placed his horn carefully in its case. 　　They were surrounded by couples imploring them in English, in French,in Spanish, of one more dance, one only; it was still early. 　　But the old man at the piano merely exhibited his watch and shookhis head. He turned up the collar of his coat and produced a redsilk muffler, which completely dashed his festive appearance. 　　Strange as it seemed, the musicians were pale and heavy-eyed; they lookedbored and prosaic, as if the summit of their desire was cold meatand beer, succeeded immediately by bed. 　　Rachel was one of those who had begged them to continue. When theyrefused she began turning over the sheets of dance music which layupon the piano. The pieces were generally bound in coloured covers,with pictures on them of romantic scenes--gondoliers astrideon the crescent of the moon, nuns peering through the bars of aconvent window, or young women with their hair down pointing a gunat the stars. She remembered that the general effect of the musicto which they had danced so gaily was one of passionate regretfor dead love and the innocent years of youth; dreadful sorrowshad always separated the dancers from their past happiness. 　　"No wonder they get sick of playing stuff like this," she remarkedreading a bar or two; "they're really hymn tunes, played very fast,with bits out of Wagner and Beethoven.""Do you play? Would you play? Anything, so long as we candance to it!" From all sides her gift for playing the pianowas insisted upon, and she had to consent. As very soon shehad played the only pieces of dance music she could remember,she went on to play an air from a sonata by Mozart. 　　"But that's not a dance," said some one pausing by the piano.