plexion of things considerably. The Honorable
Percival spent the remainder of the evening laying his hand upon the
shoulder of whosoever claimed Bobby for a dance.

It was remarkable with what facility he acquired the new steps. He knew
that he had a good figure and that he carried it with distinction. The
admiring glances that followed his entrance into any public assembly
made him pleasantly aware of the fact. To-night, however, if any of his
thoughts turned upon himself, they were but stragglers from the main
army that marched in solid file under Bobby's banner.

During the intervals when he could not dance with her he retired to
the loggia, and thought about her. She was not only the most beautiful
creature he had ever seen, but the most adorably responsive. He likened
her poetically to an AEolian harp and himself to the wind.

No one, not even his fond mother, had accepted him so implicitly at
his own valuation as Bobby. Other women frequently insisted upon their
own interpretations. He looked upon this as a form of disloyalty.
Lady Hortense had once decried his taste for Tennyson; that, and her
persistent use of a perfume which he disliked had been symbolic to him
of a difference in temperament. Bobby had no predilections for perfumes
or poets. She blindly accepted his judgment of all things, and if she
sometimes failed to conform to his wishes, it was through forgetfulness
and not opposition. He gloried in her plasticity; after all, was it not
among the chief of feminine virtues?

While he paced the loggia and thus recounted her charms, he became
increasingly intolerant of the fact that his AEolian harp was being swept
by _various_ winds. He thirsted for a complete monopoly of her
smiles, of all her glances, grave and gay, of the thousand and one
little looks and gestures that he had quite unwarrantably come to look
upon as his own.

After all, why should he consider his family before himself? Why should
he ever go back to England at all? It was the most daring thought he had
ever had, and for a moment it staggered him. Lines from "Locksley Hall"
began ringing in his ears:

"... Oh for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining-Orient when; my life began to heat:
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shady, and palms in clusters, Knots of Paradise.
There the passions, cramp'd no longer, shall have scope and breathing
spa