ack of
response troubled her no whit. She was bubbling over with caustic
comment on Mrs Elton's latest adventure in matrimony.

"She's a mighty hunter, before the Lord! She marked down poor Hilton
last cold weather," cooed the silken voice in Roy's inattentive ear. "Of
course you know he's one of our coming men! And I've a shrewd idea he
_was_ intended for Rose. But in Miss Rose the matchmaker has met her
match! She's clever--that girl; and she's reduced the tactics of
non-resistance to a fine art. I don't believe she ever stands up to her
mother. She smiles and smiles--and goes her own way. She likes playing
with soldiers; partly because they're good company; partly, I'll swear,
because she knows it keeps her mother on tenter-hooks. But when it
comes to business, she'll choose as shrewdly----"

Roy stopped dancing and confronted her, half laughing, half irate. "If
you're keen on talking--let's talk. I can't do both." He stated the fact
politely, but with decision. "And--frankly, I hate hearing a girl pulled
to pieces, just because she's charming and good-looking and----"

"Oh, my _dear_ boy," she interrupted unfailingly--sweet solicitude in
her lifted gaze. "_Did_ I trample on your chivalrous toes? Or is
it----?"

"No, it _isn't_." He resented the barefaced implication. "Naturally--I
admire her----"

"Oh, naturally! You can't help yourselves, any of you! She's 'sooner
caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad.' No use
looking daggers! It's a fact. I don't say she flirts outrageously--like
I do! She simply expects homage--and gets it. She expects men to fall in
love with her--and they topple over like ninepins. Sometimes--when I'm
feeling magnanimous--I catch a ninepin as it falls! Look at her now,
with that R.E. boy--plainly in the toils!"

Roy declined to look. If she was trying to put him off Miss Arden, she
was on the wrong tack. Besides--he wanted to dance.

"One more turn?" he suggested, nipping a fresh outbreak in the bud.
"But, please--no talking."

She laughed and shook her fan at him. "Epicure!" But after all, it was
an indirect compliment to her dancing: and for the space of two minutes,
she held her peace.

Throughout the brief pause, she rippled on, with negligible interludes;
but not till they re-entered the Hall did she revert to the theme that
had so exasperated Roy. There she espied Desmond, standing under an
archway, staring straight before him, apparently lost in thought.