en thinking of him in some way? And with that flattery still
sweet in his thoughts, he was aware that her feet suddenly faltered. He
looked at her face. It had changed. Yet so swiftly did it recover its
composure that Linforth had not even the time to understand what the
change implied. Annoyance, surprise, fear! One of these feelings,
certainly, or perhaps a trifle of each. Linforth could not make sure.
There had been a flash of some sudden emotion. That at all events was
certain. But in guessing fear, he argued, his wits must surely have gone
far astray; though fear was the first guess which he had made.

"What was the matter?"

Violet Oliver answered readily.

"A big man was jigging down upon us. I saw him over your shoulder. I
dislike being bumped by big men," she said, with a little easy laugh.
"And still more I hate having a new frock torn."

Dick Linforth was content with the answer. But it happened that Sybil
Linforth was looking on from her chair in the corner, and the corner was
very close to the spot where for a moment Violet Oliver had lost
countenance. She looked sharply at Sir John Casson, who might have
noticed or might not. His face betrayed nothing whatever. He went on
talking placidly, but Mrs. Linforth ceased to listen to him.

Violet Oliver waltzed with her partner once more round the room.
Then she said:

"Let us stop!" and in almost the same breath she added, "Oh, there's
your friend."

Linforth turned and saw standing just within the doorway his friend
Shere Ali.

"You could hardly tell that he was not English," she went on; and indeed,
with his straight features, his supple figure, and a colour no darker
than many a sunburnt Englishman wears every August, Shere Ali might have
passed unnoticed by a stranger. It seemed that he had been watching for
the couple to stop dancing. For no sooner had they stopped than he
advanced quickly towards them.

Linforth, however, had not as yet noticed him.

"It can't be Shere Ali," he said. "He is in the country. I heard from him
only to-day."

"Yet it is he," said Mrs. Oliver, and then Linforth saw him.

"Hallo!" he said softly to himself, and as Shere Ali joined them he added
aloud, "something has happened."

"Yes, I have news," said Shere Ali. But he was looking at Mrs. Oliver,
and spoke as though the news had been pushed for a moment into the back
of his mind.

"What is it?" asked Linforth.

Shere Ali turned to Linforth.

"I go back to C