liked his ironical daring, she
liked it so much that she forgot her objection to partners without
introductions; she forgot her fifty-odd years; she forgot that she was
a mother of grown children and even a mother-in-law; she remembered only
the step of her out-dated waltz.

It seemed to be modern enough for the cheerful young officer, and
they were suddenly revolving with the rest... A tide of long-forgotten
girlhood welled up in her heart, and she laughed as she floated off on
it past the astonished eyes of Miss Triscoe and Burnamy. She saw them
falter, as if they had lost their step in their astonishment; then they
seemed both to vanish, and her partner had released her, and was helping
Miss Triscoe up from the floor; Burnamy was brushing the dust from
his knees, and the citizen who had bowled them over was boisterously
apologizing and incessantly bowing.

"Oh, are you hurt?" Mrs. March implored. "I'm sure you must be killed;
and I did it! I don't know, what I was thinking of!"

The girl laughed. "I'm not hurt a bit!"

They had one impulse to escape from the place, and from the sympathy and
congratulation. In the dressing-room she declared again that she was
all right. "How beautifully you waltz, Mrs. March!" she said, and
she laughed again, and would not agree with her that she had been
ridiculous. "But I'm glad those American girls didn't see me. And I
can't be too thankful papa didn't come!"

Mrs. March's heart sank at the thought of what General Triscoe would
think of her. "You must tell him I did it. I can never lift up my head!"

"No, I shall not. No one did it," said the girl, magnanimously. She
looked down sidelong at her draperies. "I was so afraid I had torn my
dress! I certainly heard something rip."

It was one of the skirts of Burnamy's coat, which he had caught into his
hand and held in place till he could escape to the men's dressing-room,
where he had it pinned up so skillfully that the damage was not
suspected by the ladies. He had banged his knee abominably too; but they
did not suspect that either, as he limped home on the air beside them,
first to Miss Triscoe's pension, and then to Mrs. March's hotel.

It was quite eleven o'clock, which at Carlsbad is as late as three
in the morning anywhere else, when she let herself into her room. She
decided not to tell her husband, then; and even at breakfast, which they
had at the Posthof, she had not got to her confession, though she had
told him e