she glided into the music room,
and sank into a chair next Mrs. Milray. She had on an accordion skirt
which she had been able to get out of her trunk in the hold, and she
felt that the glance of Mrs. Milray did not refuse it approval.

"That will do nicely, Clementina," she said. She added, in careless
acknowledgement of her own failure to direct her choice, "I see you
didn't need my help after all," and the thorny point which Clementina
felt in her praise was rankling, when Lord Lioncourt began to introduce
her.

He made rather a mess of it, but as soon as he came to an end of his
well-meant blunders, she stood up and began her poses and paces. It was
all very innocent, with something courageous as well as appealing. She
had a kind of tender dignity in her dance, and the delicate beauty of
her face translated itself into the grace of her movements. It was not
impersonal; there was her own quality of sylvan, of elegant in it; but
it was unconscious, and so far it was typical, it was classic; Mrs.
Milray's Bostonian achieved a snub from her by saying it was like a
Botticelli; and in fact it was merely the skirt-dance which society had
borrowed from the stage at that period, leaving behind the footlights
its more acrobatic phases, but keeping its pretty turns and bows and
bends. Clementina did it not only with tender dignity, but when she
was fairly launched in it, with a passion to which her sense of Mrs.
Milray's strange unkindness lent defiance. The dance was still so new a
thing then, that it had a surprise to which the girl's gentleness lent
a curious charm, and it had some adventitious fascinations from the
necessity she was in of weaving it in and out among the stationary
armchairs and sofas which still further cramped the narrow space where
she gave it. Her own delight in it shone from her smiling face, which
was appealingly happy. Just before it should have ended, one of those
wandering waves that roam the smoothest sea struck the ship, and
Clementina caught herself skilfully from falling, and reeled to her
seat, while the room rang with the applause and sympathetic laughter
for the mischance she had baffled. There was a storm of encores, but
Clementina called out, "The ship tilts so!" and her naivete won her
another burst of favor, which was at its height when Lord Lioncourt had
an inspiration.

He jumped up and said, "Miss Claxon is going to oblige us with a little
bit of dramatics, now, and I'm sure you'll