ing
between the two.

"I am at a loss!" he exclaimed with an appealing shrug of his shoulders.
"Which is the debutante?"

Juliet laughed, her cheeks mantling with a pleased blush.

"You're a sad flatterer, Dudley! Isn't he, Eugie?"

Eugenia turned with a questioning glance.

"Oh, it's just his way," she returned good-humouredly. "A kindly
Providence has decreed that he should cover over my deficiencies."

Dudley protested affably, and ended by giving a hand to each. In the
crowded rooms he had become at once the picturesque and popular figure.
His magnetism was immediately felt, and men and women surrounded him in
small circles, while his pleasant words ran on smoothly, accompanied by
the ring of his infectious laugh. The luminous pallor of his clear-cut,
yet fleshy face, was accentuated by the sweep of his dark hair that
clung closely to his forehead. He seemed to have brought with him into
the heated rooms the spirit of humour and the zest of life.

From the deep embrasure Nicholas Burr watched curiously the flutter of
women's skirts and the flicker of candle light on shining heads. Eugenia
moved easily from group to group, the straight fall of her flaxen gown
giving her an added height, the dark coil of hair on the nape of her
long neck seeming to rise above the shoulders of other women. She was
never silent--for one and all she had some ready words, and her manner
was cordial, almost affectionate. It was as if she were in the midst of
a great family party, held together by the ties of blood.

In a far corner Juliet Galt and Emma Carr, the prettiest women in the
room, sat together upon a corn-coloured divan, and in front of them a
file of men passed and repassed slowly on their way to and from the
dining-room, pausing to exchange brief remarks and drifting on
aimlessly. Near them a fair, pale gentleman, robust and slightly bald,
with protruding eyes and anaemic lips, had flung himself upon a gilded
chair, a glass of punch in his hand. He had danced incessantly for hours
in the adjoining room, and at last, wearied, winded, with a palpitating
heart, he had found a punch bowl and a gilded chair.

Through the doorway floated music and the laughter of young girls
intoxicated with the dance. In the hall, some had sought rest upon the
stairway, and sat in radiant clusters, fanning themselves briskly as
they talked. There was about them an absence of coquetry as of
self-consciousness; they were frank, cordial-voice