! Ah, God! ah, God!--I say to you, it was sweet.
Whatever life brings to us of age and sorrow, let us remember our youth,
and say it was worth the while. Had I never lived but that one night, it
had been worth while.

She danced as she stood, with the grace of a perfect young creature, and
the ease of a perfect culture as well. I was of no mind to look further.
If this was not Ellen, then there was no Ellen there for me!

Around and around we passed, borne on the limpid shining stream of the
waltz music, as melancholy as it was joyous; music that was young; for
youth is ever full of melancholy and wonder and mystery. We danced. Now
and again I saw her little feet peep out. I felt her weight rest light
against my arm. I caught the indescribable fragrance of her hair. A gem
in the gold comb now and then flashed out; and now and again I saw her
eyes half raised, less often now, as though the music made her dream.
But yet I could have sworn I saw a dimple in her cheek through the mask,
and a smile of mockery on her lips.

I have said that her gown was dark, black laces draping over a close
fitted under bodice; and there was no relief to this somberness
excepting that in the front of the bodice were many folds of lacy lawn,
falling in many sheer pleats, edge to edge, gathered at the waist by a
girdle confined by a simple buckle of gold. Now as I danced, myself
absorbed so fully that I sought little analysis of impressions so
pleasing, I became conscious dimly of a faint outline of some figure in
color, deep in these folds of lacy lawn, an evanescent spot or blur of
red, which, to my imagination, assumed the outline of a veritable heart,
as though indeed the girl's heart quite shone through! If this were a
trick I could not say, but for a long time I resisted it. Meantime, as
chance offered in the dance--to which she resigned herself utterly--I
went on with such foolish words as men employ.

"Ah, nonsense!" she flashed back at me at last. "Discover something new.
If men but knew how utterly transparent they are! I say that to-night we
girls are but spirits, to be forgot to-morrow. Do not teach us to forget
before to-morrow comes."

"I shall not forget," I insisted.

"Then so much the worse."

"I cannot."

"But you must."

"I will not. I shall not allow--"

"How obstinate a brute a man can be," she remonstrated.

"If you are not nice I shall go at once."

"I dreamed I saw a red heart," said I. "But that cannot h