the faces of
non-dancing guests who wanted to watch the sets.

An eight-hand reel had just been danced and the girls, giddy from the
much swinging of the final figure, had been led back to their seats.
Mattie Lyall came out with a dipper of water and sprinkled the floor,
from which a fine dust was rising. Toff's violin purred under his
hands as he waited for the next set to form. The dancers were slow
about it. There was not the rush for the floor that there had been
earlier in the evening, for the supper table was now spread in the
dining-room and most of the guests were hungry.

"Fill up dere, boys," shouted the fiddler impatiently. "Bring out your
gals for de nex' set."

After a moment Paul King led out Joan Shelley from the shadowy corner
where they had been sitting. They had already danced several sets
together; Joan had not danced with anybody else that evening. As they
stood together under the light from the lamp on the shelf above them,
many curious and disapproving eyes watched them. Connor Mitchell, who
had been standing in the open outer doorway with the moonlight behind
him, turned abruptly on his heel and went out.

Paul King leaned his head against the wall and watched the watchers
with a smiling, defiant face as they waited for the set to form. He
was a handsome fellow, with the easy, winning ways that women love.
His hair curled in bronze masses about his head; his dark eyes were
long and drowsy and laughing; there was a swarthy bloom on his round
cheeks; and his lips were as red and beguiling as a girl's. A bad egg
was Paul King, with a bad past and a bad future. He was shiftless and
drunken; ugly tales were told of him. Not a man in Lyall's house that
night but grudged him the privilege of standing up with Joan Shelley.

Joan was a slight, blossom-like girl in white, looking much like the
pale, sweet-scented house rose she wore in her dark hair. Her face was
colourless and young, very pure and softly curved. She had wonderfully
sweet, dark blue eyes, generally dropped down, with notably long black
lashes. There were many showier girls in the groups around her, but
none half so lovely. She made all the rosy-cheeked beauties seem
coarse and over-blown.

She left in Paul's clasp the hand by which he had led her out on the
floor. Now and then he shifted his gaze from the faces before him to
hers. When he did, she always looked up and they exchanged glances as
if they had been utterly alone. Three ot