Should

[gerseyli]

Hello
I was reading James Joyce's ' The Dead' when I came across the following sentence:
"He waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish<...>"
My question is why is there 'should' ? Why not just write " until the waltz finished" ?
Hope you help me with this problem!

[Alan]

It is a rather literary option deriving from an old subjunctive construction. It contains a slight suggestion that the future event in question (here the finishing of the waltz) might not occur.