made him perfectly
happy when she danced with him! He longed to say to her: "If I might be
close to you like that one minute every day, then I don't mind all the
rest!" Perhaps he would dare say that to-morrow. Lying there he still
felt a little funny. He had forgotten to close the ribs of the blinds,
and moonlight was filtering in; but he was too idle, too drowsy to get up
now and do it. They had given him brandy, rather a lot--that perhaps was
the reason he felt so queer; not ill, but mazy, as if dreaming, as if he
had lost the desire ever to move again. Just to lie there, and watch the
powdery moonlight, and hear faraway music throbbing down below, and still
feel the touch of her, as in the dance she swayed against him, and all
the time to have the scent about him of flowers! His thoughts were
dreams, his dreams thoughts--all precious unreality. And then it seemed
to him that the moonlight was gathered into a single slip of
pallor--there was a thrumming, a throbbing, and that shape of moonlight
moved towards him. It came so close that he felt its warmth against his
brow; it sighed, hovered, drew back soundless, and was gone. He must
have fallen then into dreamless sleep. . . .

What time was it when he was awakened by that delicate 'rat-tat' to see
his tutor standing in the door-way with a cup of tea?

Was young Lennan all right? Yes, he was perfectly all right--would be
down directly! It was most frightfully good of Mr. Stormer to come! He
really didn't want anything.

Yes, yes; but the maimed and the halt must be attended to!

His face seemed to the boy very kind just then--only to laugh at him a
very little--just enough. And it was awfully decent of him to have come,
and to stand there while he drank the tea. He was really all right, but
for a little headache. Many times while he was dressing he stood still,
trying to remember. That white slip of moonlight? Was it moonlight?
Was it part of a dream; or was it, could it have been she, in her
moonlight-coloured frock? Why had he not stayed awake? He would not
dare to ask her, and now would never know whether the vague memory of
warmth on his brow had been a kiss.

He breakfasted alone in the room where they had danced. There were two
letters for him. One from his guardian enclosing money, and complaining
of the shyness of the trout; the other from his sister. The man she was
engaged to--he was a budding diplomat, attached to the Embassy at