a bolder fold and pride ennobled his voice. After
all this was a brilliant interesting world.

His glance went approvingly over the shifting colours of the people,
it rested here and there in kindly criticism upon a face. Presently it
occurred to him that he owed some apology to the charming little person
with the red hair and blue eyes. He felt guilty of a clumsy snub. It
was not princely to ignore her advances, even if his policy necessitated
their rejection. He wondered if he should see her again. And suddenly
a little thing touched all the glamour of this brilliant gathering and
changed its quality.

He looked up and saw passing across a bridge of porcelain and looking
down upon him, a face that was almost immediately hidden, the face of
the girl he had seen overnight in the little room beyond the theatre
after his escape from the Council. And she was looking with much the
same expression of curious expectation, of uncertain intentness, upon
his proceedings. For the moment he did not remember when he had seen
her, and then with recognition came a vague memory of the stirring
emotions of their first encounter. But the dancing web of melody about
him kept the air of that great marching song from his memory.

The lady to whom he was talking repeated her remark, and Graham recalled
himself to the quasiregal flirtation upon which he was engaged.

But from that moment a vague restlessness, a feeling that grew to
dissatisfaction, came into his mind. He was troubled as if by some
half forgotten duty, by the sense of things important slipping from
him amidst this light and brilliance. The attraction that these bright
ladies who crowded about him were beginning to exercise ceased. He no
longer made vague and clumsy responses to the subtly amorous advances
that he was now assured were being made to him, and his eyes wandered
for another sight of that face that had appealed so strongly to his
sense of beauty. But he did not see her again until he was awaiting
Lincoln's return to leave this assembly. In answer to his request
Lincoln had promised that an attempt should be made to fly that
afternoon, if the weather permitted. He had gone to make certain
necessary arrangements.

Graham was in one of the upper galleries in conversation with a
bright-eyed lady on the subject of Eadhamite--the subject was his
choice and not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal
devotion with a matter-of-fact inquiry. He found h