what disparaging remark--so low, however, but what the listener was
forced to hear it, too.

Both laughed a little. But though Maurice rose and clattered his chair,
Herries persisted, with an Englishman's supreme indifference to the
bystander: "Do you think she can dance?"

"Can't tell. Looks a trifle heavy."

"Well, I'll risk it. Come on. Let's get some one to introduce us."

The blood had rushed to Maurice's head and buzzed there: another
second, and he would have stepped out and confronted the speaker. But
the incident had passed like a flash. And it was better so: it would
have been a poor service to her, to begin the evening with an
unpleasantness. Besides, was this not what he had been bracing himself
to expect? He looked stealthily over at Louise; considering the
proximity of the rooms, it was probable that she, too, had overheard
the derogatory words. But when she had put on her gloves, she took his
arm without a trace of discomfiture.

They entered the hall at the close of a polka, and slipped unnoticed
into the train of those who promenaded. But they had not gone once
round, when they were the observed of all eyes; although he looked
straight in front of him, Maurice could see the astonished eyebrows and
open mouths that greeted their advance. At one end of the hall was an
immense mirror: he saw that Louise, who was flushed, held her head
high, and talked to him without a pause. In a kind of bravado, she made
him take her round a second time; and after the third, which was a
solitary progress, they remained standing with their backs to the
mirror. Eggis at once came up, with Herries in his train, and, on
learning that she had no programme, the latter ran off to fetch one.
Before he returned, a third man had joined them, and soon she was the
centre of a little circle. Herries, having returned with the programme,
would not give it up until he had put his initials opposite several
dances. Louise only smiled--a rather artificial smile that had been on
her lips since she entered the hall.

Maurice had fallen back, and now stood unnoticed behind the group. Once
Louise turned her head, and raised her eyebrows interrogatively; but a
feeling that was mingled pride and dismay restrained him; and as, even
when the choosing of dances was over, he did not come forward, she
walked down the hall on Herries's arm. The musicians began to tune;
Dove, as master of ceremonies, was flying about, with his hands in
gloves tha