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Vai watches them with her mouth slightly open. I turn her empty cup away from the edge of the table before her elbow can catch it.

“Would you like to dance?” I ask.

She looks at me. “With you.”

I rise before she can wonder whether I meant someone else.

In the cleared space, she puts her hand in mine and looks down at the distance between our feet.

“I may have been ambitious.”

“The steps are small.”

“Yours or mine?”

“We’ll begin with yours.”

I lower our joined hands to a comfortable height and rest my other hand at her waist. She reaches my upper arm easily enough. When I take the first step, she follows, watching my feet until I draw her a little closer.

“Look at me.”

“You’ll have to do the steering.”

“I can manage.”

She lifts her face. On the next turn, her skirt brushes my leg. I shorten the step before she has to hurry, and she follows it laughing.

For the first few measures I think about how far to move and where to put my hand. Then she begins to trust the rhythm, and I can feel the change in her body. She stops trying to anticipate each turn. Her fingers curl around my arm. When I lead her past the end of the table, she looks up at me with the same pleasure she had shown the warm pool.

I miss a step.

“Daurek.”

“I know.”

“You said you could manage.”

“I was looking at you.”

“You started it.”

She is laughing too much to follow the next turn, so I bring her close and wait for the rhythm to find us again. Her cheek rests briefly against my chest. A white flower unfolds against her hair.

Vai lifts her head and finds it with her fingertips.

She presses her mouth against the grain beside it. I feel the kiss long after she draws back.

When the music ends, I am still holding her.

“Another?” she asks.

I nod to the fiddler. He makes me wait while he drinks, enjoying my impatience. Vai sees that too.

“You must have been awful when you were young.”

“He complained then.”

“What did you do?”