g. There is a rustling tumult of
women's dresses, a shaking out of handkerchiefs, light gusts of laughter,
and fragments of conversation. The handsome women move about like birds,
with a plumy, elastic motion, waving their fans, smelling their bouquets,
and listening through them to tones that are very low. The Prince of the
house is every where, smiling, sinuous, dark in the eyes and hair.

It is already late, and there is no disposition to be seated. Sligo
Moultrie stands by Grace Plumer, and she is very glad and even grateful
to him. Abel, passing to and fro, looks at her occasionally, and can not
possibly tell if her confusion is pain or pleasure. There is a reckless
gayety in the tone with which he speaks to the other ladies. "Surely Mr.
Newt was never so fascinating," they all think in their secret souls; and
they half envy Grace Plumer, for they know the little supper is given for
her, and they think it needs no sibyl to say why, or to prophesy the
future.

It is nearly midnight, and the moon is rising. Hark!

A band pours upon the silent night the mellow, passionate wail of "Robin
Adair." The bright company stands listening and silent. The festive
scene, the hour, the flowers, the luxury of the place, the beauty of
the women, impress the imagination, and touch the music with a softer
melancholy. Hal Battlebury's eyes are clear, but his heart is full of
tears as he listens and thinks of Amy Waring. He knows that all is in
vain. She has told him, with a sweet dignity that made her only lovelier
and more inaccessible, that it can not be. He is trying to believe it. He
is hoping to show her one day that she is wrong. Listening, he follows in
his mind the song the band is playing.

Sligo Moultrie feels and admires the audacious skill of Abel in crowning
the feast with music. Grace Plumer leans upon his arm. Abel Newt's
glittering eyes are upon them. It is the very moment he had intended to
be standing by her side, to hold her arm in his, and to make her feel
that the music which pealed in long cadences through the midnight, and
streamed through the draped windows into the room, was the passionate
entreaty of his heart, the irresistible pathos of the love he bore her.

Somehow Grace Plumer is troubled. She fears the fascination she enjoys.
She dreads the assumption of power over her which she has observed in
Abel. She recoils from the cold blackness she has seen in his eyes. She
sees it at this moment again, in th