e them with _me_ you meant to
say. Isn't it?"

"You can think as you wish, of course."

"All the world is free to do that. Then I may blot your name from my
card for the rest of the evening?"

"Certainly."

"If those dances are free, Miss Blount, may I ask you for them?" says
Stephen, pleasantly.

"You can have them with pleasure," replies she, smiling kindly at him.

"Don't stay too long in the night air, Dulce," says Roger, with the
utmost unconcern, turning to go indoors again. This is the unkindest cut
of all. If he had gone away angry, silent, revengeful, she might perhaps
have forgiven him, but this careful remembrance of her, this calm and
utterly indifferent concern for her comfort fills her with vehement
anger.

The blood forsakes her lips, and her eyes grow bright with passionate
tears.

"Why do you take things so much to heart?" says Stephen, in a low voice.
"Do you care so greatly then about an unpleasant speech from him? I
should have thought you might have grown accustomed to his _brusquerie_
by this."

"He wasn't brusque just now," says Dulce. "He was very kind, was he not?
Careful about my catching cold, and that."

"_Very_," says Gower, significantly. "Yet there are tears in your eyes.
What a baby you are."

"No, I am not," says Dulce, mournfully. "A baby is an adorable thing,
and I am very far from being that."

"If babies are to be measured by their adorableness, I should say you
are the very biggest baby I ever saw," declares Mr. Gower, with such an
amount of settled conviction in his tone that Dulce, in spite of the
mortification that is still rankling in her breast, laughs aloud.
Delighted with his success, Gower laughs, too, and taking her hand draws
it within his arm.

"Come, do not let us forget Roger gave you to me for this dance," he
says. "If only for that act of grace, I forgive him all his misdeeds."
With a last lingering glance at the beauty of the night, together they
return to the ballroom.

CHAPTER XV.

"I would that I were low laid in my grave."
--KING JOHN.

"Proteus, I love thee in my heart of hearts."
--TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

THE last guest has departed. Portia has wished "good-night" to a very
sleepy Dulce, and has gone upstairs to her own room. In the corridor
where she sleeps, Fabian sleeps too, and as she passes his door lightly
and on tip-toe, she finds