Avery, late of Maunch Chunk, but now of
Ours.

They made their devoirs to the dowagers; silently they chose their
seats, which he bound together with a handkerchief in a true lovers'
knot; and, Fetzy's continuing its heavenly work, he put his arm about
her without speech, and they floated away upon the rhythmic tide.

At last her voice broke the golden silence: "I feel enormously happy
to-night. I don't know why."

The observation might seem unnoteworthy to the casual, but it carried
them all around the room again.

"Fortune is good to me," said he, as lightly as he could, "to let me be
with you when you feel like that."

He had never seen her so handsome; the nearness of her beauty
intoxicated him; her voice was indolent, provocative. She was superbly
dressed in white, and on her rounded breast nodded his favor, a splendid
corsage of orchid and lily-of-the-valley.

"Fortune?" she queried. "Don't you think that men bring these things to
pass for themselves?"

They had made the circle on that, too, before West said: "I wonder if
you begin to understand what a power you have of bringing happiness to
me."

He looked, and indeed, for the transient moment, he felt, like a man who
must have his answer, for better or worse, within the hour. She saw his
look, and her eyes fell before it, not wholly because she knew how to do
that to exactly the best advantage. Few persons would have mistaken Miss
Avery for a wholly inexperienced and unsophisticated girl. But how was
she to know that that same look had risen in the eyes of West, and that
same note, obviously sincere, broken suddenly into his pleasant voice,
for many, many of the fair?

The music died in a splendid crash, and they threaded their way to their
seats, slowly and often stopped, across the crowded floor. Many eyes
followed them as they walked. She was still "new" to us; she was
beautiful; she was her own young lady, and something about her suggested
that she would be slightly unsafe for boys, the headstrong, and the
foolish; rumor made her colossally wealthy. As for him, he was the glass
of fashion and the mould of form, and much more than that besides. Of an
old name but a scanty fortune, he had won his place by his individual
merits; chiefly, perhaps, for so wags the world, by an exterior
singularly prepossessing and a manner that was a possession above
rubies. His were good looks of the best fashion of men's good looks; not
a tall man, he yet gave the e