Chap­ter X intro­duces an evening puls­ing with music and move­ment, but for Denis, it unfolds like a dream he’s been exclud­ed from. Rag­time bursts from the pianola, oper­at­ed with qui­et dis­ci­pline by Hen­ry Wim­bush, giv­ing life to a dance floor filled with grace, rhythm, and laugh­ter. Yet while oth­ers merge effort­less­ly into the music, Denis remains seat­ed, trapped in a loop of self-obser­va­tion and doubt. To him, the music doesn’t inspire joy—it irri­tates like an itch he can’t reach. His eyes fol­low Anne as she dances with Gom­bauld, their bod­ies in per­fect sync, and envy creeps in. The ele­gance of their con­nec­tion makes him shrink fur­ther into him­self. He won­ders if per­son­al­i­ty is some­thing prac­ticed or gift­ed, and in that thought, he feels even small­er.

Gom­bauld, with his painter’s hands and poised move­ments, becomes a sym­bol of every­thing Denis is not. Denis watch­es the world move, but doesn’t join it, his body heavy with uncer­tain­ty. He con­vinces him­self that danc­ing is triv­ial, that read­ing offers deep­er satisfaction—but he doesn’t quite believe it. As the music shifts, Anne’s request for a waltz draws admi­ra­tion from the crowd, and Denis qui­et­ly despairs at how even her sug­ges­tions shape the room’s ener­gy. His thoughts return to Gom­bauld: bold, cre­ative, com­fort­able in his skin. Denis mea­sures him­self against that con­fi­dence and finds a deficit he can’t hide. Mean­while, laugh­ter ris­es, foot­steps shuf­fle, and he slips fur­ther into his inter­nal mono­logue. He does­n’t lack words—only the ease to speak them aloud when it mat­ters.

Mr. Scogan’s com­ic dance with Mary offers com­ic relief, though Denis can’t laugh with it. Their pair­ing, awk­ward but joy­ful, only reminds him of how he freezes when the moment calls for spon­tane­ity. Mary, nev­er one to miss a con­tra­dic­tion, approach­es him and asks why he reads dur­ing a par­ty. Her tone is curi­ous, not judg­men­tal, but it strikes Denis the wrong way. His reply is defen­sive, and she sens­es it, shift­ing the con­ver­sa­tion toward dancing’s rep­e­ti­tion. Denis tries to hide his frus­tra­tion behind clev­er­ness, yet it bub­bles to the sur­face. In his mind, her ques­tions are a test, and he’s already failed. The irony doesn’t escape him—he longs for con­nec­tion but recoils when­ev­er some­one reach­es out.

Else­where, Jen­ny scrib­bles unseen impres­sions, her note­book cap­tur­ing what oth­ers miss. She’s present but silent, record­ing not to par­tic­i­pate but to wit­ness. Priscil­la, mean­while, engages Mr. Bar­be­cue-Smith in a spi­ral­ing dia­logue about opti­mism and the cos­mos, her thoughts drift­ing to astrol­o­gy and the stars. Denis catch­es frag­ments of this and rolls his eyes, but part of him envies their abil­i­ty to speak with­out hes­i­ta­tion. Every­one, it seems, has found a role for the evening, except him. Even the absur­di­ties, like Priscilla’s views on Ein­stein and zodi­ac signs, feel more secure than the hol­low space Denis occu­pies. The gap between his intel­lect and his expres­sion weighs on him like lead. He watch­es, lis­tens, calculates—but rarely enters the scene.

As the evening deep­ens, the mood warms. Con­ver­sa­tions grow loud­er, bod­ies move clos­er, and Denis remains a fixed point in an ever-shift­ing room. The con­trast between exter­nal joy and his inter­nal sta­t­ic becomes unbear­able. He ques­tions whether this is sim­ply his nature or a self-made prison. The image of Anne and Gom­bauld danc­ing stays with him—fluid, free, unaf­fect­ed. That kind of ease, he thinks, must be earned over time, yet it feels like a birthright he missed. The music, now soft­er, car­ries an inti­ma­cy he feels shut out from. He does not hate the party—but it unset­tles him. Every smile exchanged on the floor is a reminder of how far he stands from ease.

For read­ers, Denis’s intro­spec­tion offers some­thing deeply relat­able. His dis­com­fort in social spaces, his ten­den­cy to over­think, and his hunger to connect—these are famil­iar strug­gles for any­one who has ever felt out of sync with their sur­round­ings. His paral­y­sis isn’t a lack of intel­li­gence or interest—it’s the weight of self-aware­ness. Watch­ing oth­ers thrive while ques­tion­ing one’s own worth can feel like both pun­ish­ment and puz­zle. Denis is not unkind or aloof; he is sim­ply human in a painful­ly hon­est way. And in cap­tur­ing this ten­sion, the chap­ter opens a qui­et con­ver­sa­tion about how belong­ing is felt, not forced.

This chap­ter is more than a snap­shot of a gathering—it’s a study in con­trast. Ener­gy sur­rounds Denis, yet none of it seems to touch him. The noise of music and con­ver­sa­tion under­scores the silence inside his mind. What Denis wants isn’t impos­si­ble; it’s just locked behind lay­ers of doubt and hes­i­ta­tion. And as the par­ty con­tin­ues into the night, read­ers are left with a ques­tion Denis him­self can’t answer: what does it take to move from the edge of life’s dance floor to its cen­ter?