e said, laughing.

"Such a delightful philosophy! Please remind me of it when I'm in
agony over something I'm sorry I did."

"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me too," he said, still laughing.
"Is it a bargain?"

"Certainly."

The car stopped; he sprang out and aided her to the icy sidewalk.

"I don't think I ever saw you as pretty as you are to-night," he
whispered, slipping his arm under hers.

"_Are_ you really growing more beautiful or do I merely think so?"

"I don't know," she said, happily; "I'll tell you a secret, shall I?"

He inclined his ear toward her, and she said in a laughing whisper:
"Clive, I _feel_ beautiful to-night. Do you know how it feels to feel
beautiful?"

"Not personally," he admitted; and they separated still laughing like
two children, the focus of sympathetic, amused, or envious glances
from the brilliantly dressed throng clustering at the two cloak rooms.

She came to him presently where he was waiting, and, instinctively the
groups around the doors made a lane for the fair young girl who came
forward with the ghost of a smile on her lips as though entirely
unconscious of herself and of everybody except the man who moved out
to meet her.

"It's true," he murmured; "you _are_ the most beautiful thing in this
beauty-ridden town."

"You'll spoil me, Clive."

"Is that possible?"

"I don't know. Don't try. There is a great deal in me that has never
been disturbed, never been brought out. Maybe much of it is evil," she
added lightly.

He turned; she met his eyes half seriously, half mockingly, and they
laughed. But what she had said so lightly in jest remained for a few
moments in his mind to occupy and slightly trouble it.

From their table beside the bronze-railed gallery, they could overlook
the main floor where a wide lane for dancing had been cleared and
marked out with crimson-tasselled ropes of silk.

A noisy orchestra played imbecile dance music, and a number of male
and female imbeciles took advantage of it to exercise the only
portions of their anatomy in which any trace of intellect had ever
lodged.

Athalie, resting one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail,
watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost
expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of
interest which might have been mistaken for insolence--and envied as
such by a servile world which secretly adores it.

"Well, Lady Greensleeves?" he said, watching her