ing alone in the broken semicircle.

All the eyes swept from her to him and back; then everyone began to talk
hastily about nothing. The young man's humiliation was public.

He went to the door under cover of the movement of the various couples
to find places in the quadrille, yet every sidelong glance in the room
still rested upon him, and he knew it. He remained in the ball, alone,
through that dance, and at its conclusion, walked slowly through
the rooms, speaking to people, here and there, as though nothing
had happened, but when the music sounded again, he went to the
dressing-room, found his hat and cloak, and left the house. For a
while he stood on the opposite side of the street, watching the lighted
windows, and twice he caught sight of the lilac and white brocade, the
dark hair, and the wreath of marguerites. Then, with a hot pain in his
breast, and the step of a Grenadier, he marched down the street.

In the carriage Mrs. Tanberry took Betty's hand in hers. "I'll do as you
wish, child," she said, "and never speak to you of him again as long as
I live, except this once. I think it was best for his own sake as well
as yours, but--"

"He needed a lesson," interrupted Miss Betty, wearily. She had danced
long and hard, and she was very tired.

Mrs. Tanberry's staccato laugh came out irrepressibly. "All the
vagabonds do, Princess!" she cried. "And I think they are getting it."

"No, no, I don't mean--"

"We've turned their heads, my dear, between us, you and I; and we'll
have to turn 'em again, or they'll break their necks looking over their
shoulders at us, the owls!" She pressed the girl's hand affectionately.
"But you'll let me say something just once, and forgive me because we're
the same foolish age, you know. It's only this: The next young man you
suppress, take him off in a corner! Lead him away from the crowd where
he won't have to stand and let them look at him afterward. That's all,
my dear, and you mustn't mind."

"I'm not sorry!" said Miss Betty hotly. "I'm not sorry!"

"No, no," said Mrs. Tanberry, soothingly. "It was better this time to do
just what you did. I'd have done it myself, to make quite sure he would
keep away--because I like him."

"I'm not sorry!" said Miss Betty again.

"I'm not sorry!" she repeated and reiterated to herself after Mrs.
Tanberry had gone to bed. She had sunk into a chair in the library
with a book, and "I'm not sorry!" she whispered as the open unread page
blu