. No,
Gerald's was not among them. Gerald, acquainted with the house, knew the
door, of course, of the kind frequent in Italian houses, the little door
indistinguishable from the wall, by which one could leave the library,
and after crossing the landing of the kitchen stairs, reach the
dining-room. From the dining-room, then, one could come into the
entrance hall, whence go upstairs, or out into the garden, or, as one
pleased, back into the drawing-room. Leslie did not think the matter of
sufficient importance to pursue the chase farther.

The dancing was suspended while the musician had sandwiches and glasses
of a fragrant and delicious-looking but weak punch. The Fosses' waiter
knew him well and fraternally attended to his wants.

The dining-room, though large, would not permit all the couples to enter
at once, so ices and cakes were borne from the table by cavaliers to
expectant ladies in the antechamber, on the stairs, and in the farther
rooms.

The musician after eating to his satisfaction took the time for a
cigarette, which he enjoyed, not in the library, but in cool and
peaceful isolation on the top step of the kitchen stairs. Refreshed, he
briskly went back to his piano, persuaded that the young people were
sighing to see him there. With new vigor he struck up a march. The crowd
in the dining-room thinned.

Mrs. Hawthorne and Miss Madison, with Charlie Hunt and Doctor Chandler,
one of the Americans from the pension, lingered on in the corner where,
with the migration of so many to the ball-room, all four had been able
to find chairs. Mrs. Hawthorne, of the fair moon-face, was as a matter
of course eating sweet stuff; Miss Madison, contrariwise, sipped a small
cup of black coffee. Miss Madison, no need to say, had a neat jaw-bone
to show--collarbones, too. She was not pretty, her features were hardly
worth describing, but yet it was an attractive face, as merry as it was
fundamentally shrewd, as sensible as it was sprightly. The frank, almost
business-like manner of her setting out to have a good time at the party
ensured her having at least a lively one, and her partners not finding
it slow. She at once and impartially interested herself in the men
brought up to her, and sought to interest them. Her flirtatiousness was,
however, sedate--in its way, moral--not intended to have any result
beyond the enlivenment of the hour.

Miss Madison had been finding exhilaration and delight this evening in
dancing, and