this
is! How long did it take, Mr. Flaxman?'

'Exactly three minutes' he said, his gaze fixed upon her with an
expression that only Lady Helen noticed.

'So little! Good-night, Lady Charlotte!' and giving her hand first to
her hostess, then to Mr. Flaxman's bewildered sister, she moved away
into the crowd.

'Hugh, of course you are going down with her?' exclaimed Lady Charlotte
under her breath. 'You must. I promised to see her safely off the
promises.'

He stood immovable. Lady Helen with a reproachful look made a step
forward, but he caught her arm.

'Don't spoil sport,' he said, in a tone which, amid the hum of
discussion caused by the experiment, was heard only by his aunt and
sister.

They looked at him--the one amazed, the other grimly observant--and
caught a slight significant motion of the head toward Langham's distant
figure.

Langham came up and made his farewells. As he turned his back, Lady
Helen's large astonished eyes followed him to the door.

'Oh Hugh!' was all she could say as they came back to her brother.

'Never mind, Nellie,' he whispered, touched by the bewildered sympathy
of her look; 'I will tell you all about it to-morrow. I have not been
behaving well, and am not particularly pleased with myself. But for her
it is all right. Poor, pretty little thing!'

And he walked away into the thick of the conversation.

Downstairs the hall was already full of people waiting for their
carriages. Langham, hurrying down, saw Rose coming out of the
cloak-room, muffled up in brown furs, a pale, child-like fatigue in her
looks which set his heart beating faster than ever.

'Miss Leyburn, how are you going home?'

'Will you ask for a hansom, please?'

'Take my arm,' he said, and she clung to him through the crush till they
reached the door.

Nothing but private carriages were in sight. The street seemed blocked,
a noisy tumult of horses and footmen and shouting men with lanterns.
Which of them suggested, 'Shall we walk a few steps?' At any rate, here
they were, out in the wind and the darkness, every step carrying them
farther away from that moving patch of noise and light behind.

'We shall find a cab at once in Park Lane,' he said. 'Are you warm?'

'Perfectly.'

A fur hood fitted round her face, to which the color was coming back.
She held her cloak tightly round her, and her little feet, fairly well
shod, slipped in and out on the dry frosty pavement.

Suddenly they passed a huge unf