In a quiet, British way
Miss Delafield was a creature of impulse. Her likes and dislikes were a
matter of instinct, and, much as one respects the doctrine of charity,
it is a question whether an instinctive dislike should be quashed by an
exaggerated sense of neighborly duty. Steinmetz she liked, and there was
an end to it.

"I was afraid you did not recognize me," she said.

"My life has not so many pleasures that I can afford to forget one of
them," replied Steinmetz, in his somewhat old-fashioned courtesy. "But
an old--buffer, shall I say?--hardly expects to be taken much notice of
by young ladies at a ball."

"It is not ten minutes since Paul assured me that you were the best
dancer that Vienna ever produced," said the girl, looking at him with
bright, honest eyes.

Karl Steinmetz looked down at her, for he was a tall man when Paul
Alexis was not near. His quiet gray eyes were almost affectionate. There
was a sudden sympathy between these two, and sudden sympathies are the
best.

"Will you give an old man a trial?" he asked. "They will laugh at you."

She handed him her programme.

"Let them laugh!" she said.

He took the next dance, which happened to be vacant on her card. Almost
immediately the music began, and they glided off together. Maggie began
with the feeling that she was dancing with her own father, but this wore
off before they had made much progress through the crowd, and gave way
to the sensation that she had for partner the best dancer she had ever
met, gray-haired, stout, and middle-aged.

"I wanted to speak to you," she said.

"Ah!" Steinmetz answered. He was steering with infinite skill. In that
room full of dancers no one touched Maggie's elbow or the swing of her
dress, and she, who knew what such things meant, smiled as she noted it.

"I have been asked to go and stay at Osterno," she said. "Shall I go?"

"By whom?"

"By Paul."

"Then go," said Steinmetz, making one of the few mistakes of his life.

"You think so--you want me to go?"

"Ach! you must not put it like that. How well you dance--colossal! But
it does not affect me--your going, frauelein."

"Since you will be there?"

"Does that make a difference, my dear young lady?"

"Of course it does."

"I wonder why."

"So do I," answered Maggie frankly. "I wonder why. I have been wondering
why, ever since Paul asked me. If you had not been going I should have
said 'No' at once."

Karl Steinmetz laughed quietly.

"