so you're
all merely put back _one_. If you don't like it, you needn't come for
it--_c'est tout simple_!"

Then they took their places, and the dark eyes looked full into his
own. Dick felt he was winning in a canter.

Miss Bruce put her hand on the collar of diamonds round her neck. "I'm
glad you're _not_ my cousin," she said; "I'm glad you're not _really_
a relation. You're far dearer as it is. You're the best friend and
truest gentleman I ever met in my life. Now I sha'n't thank you any
more. Mind your dancing, and set to that gawky woman opposite. Isn't
she badly dressed?"

How could Dick tell? He didn't even know he had a _vis-a-vis_, and the
"gawky woman," as Miss Bruce most unjustly called her, only wondered
anybody could make such blunders in so simple a figure as the _Ete_.
His head was in a whirl. A certain chivalrous instinct warned him that
this was no time, while his idol lay under a heavy obligation, to
press his suit. Yet he could not, for the life of him, help venturing
a word.

"I look at nobody but you," he answered, turning pale as men do when
they are in sad earnest. "I should never wish to see any other face
than yours for the rest of my life."

"How tired you'd get of it," said she, with a bright smile; but she
timed her reply so as to embark immediately afterwards on the _Chaine
des Dames_, a measure exceedingly ill calculated for sustained
conversation, and changed the subject directly she returned to his
side.

"Where did you dine?" she asked saucily. "With those wild young men at
the barracks, I suppose. I knew you would: and you did all sorts of
horrid things, drank and smoked--I'm _sure_ you smoked." She put her
laced hand-kerchief laughingly to her nose.

"I dined with Bearwarden," answered honest Dick, "and he's coming on
here directly with a lot of them. My mother will be so pleased--it's
going to be a capital ball."

"I thought Lord Bearwarden never went to balls," replied the young
lady carelessly; but her heart swelled with gratified vanity to think
of the attraction that drew him now to every place where he could hear
her voice and look upon her beauty.

"There he is," was her partner's comment, as his lordship's
head appeared in the doorway. "We'll have one more dance, Miss
Bruce--Maud--before the night is over?"

"As many as you please," was her answer, and still Dick felt he had
the race in hand and was winning in a canter.

People go to balls for pleasure, no doubt,