d
language.

"But I was a fool to speak of Tenham," he thought. "A great fool."

A little later Miss Vanderpoel made her curtsy to the exalted guest,
and was commented upon again by those who looked on. It was not at
all unnatural that one should find ones eyes following a girl who,
representing a sort of royal power, should have the good fortune of
possessing such looks and bearing.

Remembering his child bete noir of the long legs and square, audacious
little face, Nigel Anstruthers found himself restraining a slight grin
as he looked on at her dancing. Partners flocked about her like bees,
and Lady Alanby of Dole, and other very grand old or middle-aged ladies
all found the evening more interesting because they could watch her.

"She is full of spirit," said Lady Alanby, "and she enjoys herself as a
girl should. It is a pleasure to look at her. I like a girl who gets
a magnificent colour and stars in her eyes when she dances. It looks
healthy and young."

It was Tommy Miss Vanderpoel was dancing with when her ladyship said
this. Tommy was her grandson and a young man of greater rank than
fortune. He was a nice, frank, heavy youth, who loved a simple county
life spent in tramping about with guns, and in friendly hobnobbing with
the neighbours, and eating great afternoon teas with people whose jokes
were easy to understand, and who were ready to laugh if you tried a joke
yourself. He liked girls, and especially he liked Jane Lithcom, but
that was a weakness his grandmother did not at all encourage, and, as he
danced with Betty Vanderpoel, he looked over her shoulder more than once
at a pair of big, unhappy blue eyes, whose owner sat against the wall.

Betty Vanderpoel herself was not thinking of Tommy. In fact, during
this brilliant evening she faced still further developments of her own
strange case. Certain new things were happening to her. When she had
entered the ballroom she had known at once who the man was who stood
before the royal guest--she had known before he bowed low and withdrew.
And her recognition had brought with it a shock of joy. For a few
moments her throat felt hot and pulsing. It was true--the things which
concerned him concerned her. All that happened to him suddenly became
her affair, as if in some way they were of the same blood. Nigel's
slighting of him had infuriated her; that Lord Dunholm had offered him
friendship and hospitality was a thing which seemed done to herself,
and filled h