A black man in a white coat began to move all the chairs against the wall and Simon knew it was time for the waltzes.

He lifted his bow and sailed into “Lucy’s Waltz,” slowly and carefully. To open the dance, Colonel Webb led Mrs. Webb to the emptied floor and they stepped out. The son of a bitch was a smooth dancer, Simon had to give him that. Commissioner Davis and his wife followed. Simon made his fiddle sing. No double-stopping. Clear notes of melody; come and dance, the melody said. Glide and circle, take flight. When the floor was full and crowded, when Davis and Webb and their wives had left the floor and half the men were half drunk he turned to Pruitt and held out his fiddle.

“See what you can do with ‘Moonlight Waltz.’”

“Me?” Pruitt was alarmed.

“To whom am I speaking?” Simon gazed around the dais left and right.

“Just do it,” Damon told Pruitt. “And shut up.”

Simon stepped down from the dais and went straight to Doris Dillon. She stood demurely against the wall with her hands clasped in front of her. The white flower stood out against her black hair, the dark green dress showed off her white throat and arms. It was low in front. He put both hands behind his back and bowed and then held out his hand with the palm up as if he held there another waltz, and inside that another. It was hers to take, hers to brush away.

“Would you dance with me, Miss Dillon?”

“Yes!”

She gave the slightest indication of a curtsey, and then looked neither left nor right but lifted her hand to his shoulder. He placed his hand on her waist, and together they moved out onto the floor. That first step into the waltz with the left foot is like a boat into the rapids of the music, the first step into a long slide down a snowy glorious slope. A door opens into a palace made of lamplight, where all the men are just and courageous and all the women are beautiful and wise. They were in faultless motion together, his hand closed on her waist and all those emerald skirts flying out, her head on his shoulder. He lowered his head without touching her but still so close. He took in her scent of freshly washed hair, lemon and gardenia.

“Miss Dillon,” he said. “Doris.”

“We are in trouble,” she said.

“I don’t care, I don’t care.”

She gripped his hand tightly. She did not even see the other dancers. Moments like this in life are few. Very few. The music went on forever and ever and they moved from hesitation to sureness and then to a future between them, whatever that might be. All the tall windows were dark and swarming with the reflections of thirty dancers and floating skirts and the heartbeat pace of the waltz.

Simon put his mouth close to her ear and said, “Say when. No more delay, no more dithering. We will be married in the next town.”

“Oh my God.”

“Say when.”

“In two nights. I will send a note by Mercedes.”

“Yes,” said Simon. “In two nights then.”

“And you made a promise to me. You would not engage with Colonel Webb.”

“In fisticuffs, no.”

“Or shooting,” she said.

“Or stabbing. Or drowning. I made a promise.”

The colonel at last looked up from his inundation of words by Commissioner Davis and saw them; his face went blank with fury. The waltz cranked on, barely in the possession of Pruitt. It was getting away from him. Damon manfully fluted the harmonies and the timing in his ear.

At last it ended. Colonel Webb stared at them for a long time and then turned to talk to someone beside him.

Simon bowed; Doris curtsied. He returned to the dais, took back his instrument, and began to play “Death and the Sinner.”

Now there would be trouble. He missed notes, played the A part three times. Damon picked up for him, playing amazing complications and arabesques on his C whistle. Colonel Webb remained in the room, talking, gesticulating, and always near Commissioner Davis. The dreadful Pruitt managed the rhythm well enough and at last the dancers fell to fanning themselves near the windows. It was eleven o’clock and so now it was time for the guests to go. Doris glanced at Simon once, smiled, and then took up her skirts and disappeared down the hall.

Webb came up to them as they were packing their instruments. Pruitt stood with the two pages of set lists in his hand. Simon blew the rosin from the bridge of his instrument, then looked up.

“Well,” Webb said. “I am new to Texas. New to the South. I never heard of one of the musicians coming down from the stage in the middle of the performance to dance with one of the household maids.” He nodded as if to himself. “No indeed. Never heard of it. Some strange new Southern custom.”

Simon turned to him with both hands at his sides and looked him in the eye. He said, “Shocking, I know. I was overcome with admiration for your governess, Miss Dillon, and wished to dance a waltz with her.”

Damon said in a low voice, “Simon.”

Several other Union officers were nearby.

“I thought it was charming,” one of them said.

“Why don’t you shut up?” said Webb. The man flushed red and then turned on his heel and left. Two other officers quickly followed him. Mrs. Webb also sped out of the room, clearly from prior experience. Webb turned on Simon again. Damon stood stock-still, assessing the situation, and Pruitt gazed about with a wary look on his face.

Webb said, “It’s very clear you are entertaining hopes of Miss Dillon. Aren’t you? I am telling you, you are a common vagrant, and if you ever try to make contact with her I will have the sheriff take you up on charges. Any charge we can think of.” He pulled at his coat front. “She is not for somebody like you, a tramp fiddler.”

Simon turned pale but he kept his temper. He closed his fiddle case with a hard definitive snap like a gunshot. As far as Simon could tell Webb was not armed.

He said, “And so, who is she for then?”

“For someone certainly more refined, someone with a social position that doesn’t involve common labor, and a tramp fiddler is common labor.”

Simon closed his mouth tightly, thinking, He said “common” about three times in a row. Aloud he said, “And who are you to say who she can see and who she can’t? I don’t suppose you have consulted her in any way?”

Webb was silent for a moment and then he said, “Any more questions?”

Damon stepped up, whacking his whistle against his thigh in a nervous rhythm. “Yes. Where is our pay?” He was trying to change the conflict to one about money and not about Miss Dillon; money was safer, at this juncture, than love.

Colonel Webb glanced at Damon. “You don’t deserve to be paid after that outrageous behavior.” He stepped close to Simon and stabbed a finger into his lapel. “I did not pay you to come here and dance with the household help. She is not to flaunt herself about like a dance-hall girl. Not in my household.”

Simon moved Webb’s hand aside. “Don’t do that,” he said.

Damon was poised with the whistle in his hand and Pruitt stared, fascinated. “Simon, you made a promise,” Damon said in a low voice.

Webb turned and shouted, “Thad!” A black man in a white coat came walking in at an extremely slow pace.

“Yes, sir?”

“Give me their money.”

It was handed to him in a small, heavy cloth sack. Simon never took his eyes from Webb. Simon said, “And I want you to keep your hands off her.”

“What did you say?” Webb gripped the sack. “An unbelievable lie! Your mind is in the gutter. The gutter. I’ll be damned if I pay anybody to come here and say rubbish like this.”

“It’s not rubbish. You know it. And maybe your superior officers would want to hear about your accounts that don’t add up.”

Thad the doorman stood with his hands clasped in front of him and eyed Webb warily, with some fear, but he stayed where he was. He had clearly been through scenes like this before. Webb stared at Simon in a fixed way as if several conflicting thoughts were running through his mind.

“What the hell would you know about any accounts? You’ve been talking to her. She has lied to you. She’s a pretty little liar. She’s a little Irish demon.” His hands moved restlessly as he shifted the money to his pocket and then out again. “Damn you, you can beg for your money like you did at Fort Brown, fiddler. And you’re not going to get it.”

Simon’s eyes opened very wide. “And your wife knows it, Colonel. How you’ve laid hands on that girl. And your daughter knows it.” He should not have said it and he knew it the second the words were out of his mouth.

The colonel took one quick step forward and hit Simon across the face with the cloth bag, heavy with coins. “Get out. Get out. All of you.”