When her toes touched the floor, it was as if the positions had been ordained by a computing machine and her unerring feet guided to them within the pin pricks of a laser. They were crisp, economical, swift – lovely. It was certain that if she danced the same sequence a thousand times, there would be no variance. Erik remembered tall, slender shorebirds of impeccable grace stepping deftly, automatically, over wavelets and obstacles of the sea’s deposition. Their legs, like this woman’s, always looked to have wills and memories of their own.