a
furious galop, which didn't go at all well with a Directoire dress),
beside Mrs. Norton, who had the air of thinking a ballroom a sort of
pound for lost souls.

Up came Sir Lionel as if to speak to her, and--I don't know what made me
do it--I said, "I saved a dance for you, but you never asked me for it,
so I gave it to someone else."

His face got red. Perhaps he thought I was lecturing him for being rude.

"Did you give it to Starlin?" he asked, bluntly.

"No. I've had mine with Captain Starlin. To Mr. Burden," said I.

"Do you want to dance it with him?"

"Not at all."

"Chuck him, then, and dance it with me. I should like to talk to you."

"That's what he said."

"Do you want to hear what he's got to say?"

(Well, you know, dear, I _had_ wanted to; but suddenly I felt as if Dick
didn't matter more than a fly, nor did any one else except the person I
was talking to. You _do_ feel like that with these quiet, masterful sort
of people, whether you care for them or not. It's just a kind of
momentary hypnotism; or, at least, that's the definition I've been
giving myself.)

"I don't want to hear what he's got to say," my hypnotized Me answered,
in the queer, abrupt way in which we had begun snapping out little short
sentences to each other. "I'm sure he couldn't say anything really
interesting."

"Don't you like Dick Burden?"

"Not much."

"Then the dance is mine. Which is it?"

"The next. Here he comes now. I see the top of his head, over the
shoulder of that youth with the collar of a curate and the face of a
convict."

The Dragon smiled benevolently at my wicked description of a
comparatively inoffensive person, and whisked me off.

"Are you offended with me?" I asked, as we waltzed a weird but heavenly
Hungarian waltz (made in Germany).

"Why do you ask that?" he wanted to know.

"Because you looked offended at dinner. What had I done? Eaten something
with the wrong fork?"

"You had done nothing I oughtn't to have been prepared to see you do."

"What ought you to be prepared to see me do?"

"It doesn't matter now."

"It does. If you don't tell me, I shall scream 'Murder' at the top of my
lungs, and then you'll have to speak."

"I certainly wouldn't. I'd bundle you home at once."

"I haven't got any home."

"My home is yours, till you marry."

"Or you do."

"Don't talk nonsense." (He was probably going to say "Tommy-rot" but
considered such striking words unfit for the ear of a d