said.

Eustace turned as if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened
it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains
of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and
suddenly she was on her feet.

He held out his hand to her with a smile half-mocking, half-persuasive.
The music swung on with a subtle enchantment. Dinah uttered a little
quivering laugh, and went to him.

In another moment the door closed, and they stood alone in the passage.

"I knew you wanted to," said Eustace, smiling down into her eyes with the
arrogance of the conqueror.

Dinah was panting a little as one who had suffered a sudden strain. "Of
course I wanted to," she returned. "But that doesn't make it right."

He pressed her hand to his heart for a moment, and she caught again a
glimpse of that fire in his eyes that had so thrilled her. She could not
meet it. She stood in palpitating silence.

"Where is the use of fighting against fate?" he asked her softly. "A gift
of the gods is never offered twice."

She did not understand him, but her heart was beating wildly,
tumultuously, and an inner voice urged her to be gone.

She slipped her hand free. "Aren't we--wasting time?" she whispered.

He laughed again in that subtle, half-mocking note, but he met her wish
instantly. They went downstairs to the _salon_.

There were not so many dancers now. The de Vignes had evidently retired.
One rapid glance told Dinah this, and she dismissed them therewith from
her mind. The rhythm and lure of the music caught her. She slid into the
dance with delicious abandonment. The wonder and romance of it had got
into her veins. No stolen pleasure was ever more keenly enjoyed than was
that last perfect dance. Her very blood was a-fire with the strange,
intoxicating joy of life. She wanted to go on for ever.

But it ended at length. She came to earth after her rapturous flight, and
found herself standing with her partner in a curtained recess of the
ballroom from which a glass door led on to the verandah that ran round
the hotel.

"Just a glimpse of the moonlight on the mountains," he said, "before we
say good-night!"

She went with him without a moment's thought. She was as one caught in
the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed
through on to the verandah.

The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a
fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapp