is we?"

"Well;--the parties are not quite arranged yet. I think I'm to dance
with Count Costi. Something depends on colours of dress and other
matters. The gentlemen are all to be in some kind of uniform. We have
rehearsed it, and in rehearsing we have done it all round, one with the
other."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"We weren't to tell till it was settled."

"I mean to go and see it," said the Dean. "I delight in anything of
that kind."

Mary was so perfectly easy in the matter, so free from doubt, so
disembarrassed, that he was for the moment tranquillised. She had said
that she was to dance, not with that pernicious Captain, but with a
foreign Count. He did not like foreign Counts, but at the present
moment he preferred any one to Jack De Baron. He did not for a moment
doubt her truth. And she had been true,--though Jack De Baron and Mrs.
Houghton had been true also. When Mary had been last at Mrs. Jones'
house the matter had not been quite settled, and in her absence Jack
had foolishly, if not wrongly, carried his point with the old lady. It
had been decided that the performers were to go through their work in
the fashion that might best achieve the desired effect;--that they were
not to dance exactly with whom they pleased, but were to have their
parts assigned them as actors on a stage. Jack no doubt had been led by
his own private wishes in securing Mary as his partner, but of that
contrivance on his part she had been ignorant when she gave her
programme of the affair to her husband. "Won't you come in and see it?"
she said again.

"I am not very fond of those things. Perhaps I may come in for a few
minutes."

"I am fond of them," said the Dean. "I think any innocent thing that
makes life joyous and pretty is good."

"That is rather begging the question," said Lord George, as he left the
room.

Mary had not known what her husband meant by begging the question, but
the Dean had of course understood him. "I hope he is not going to
become ascetic," he said. "I hope at least that he will not insist that
you should be so."

"It is not his nature to be very gay," she answered.

On the next day, in the morning, was the last rehearsal, and then Mary
learned what was her destiny. She regretted it, but could not
remonstrate. Jack's uniform was red. The Count's dress was blue and
gold. Her dress was white, and she was told that the white and red must
go together. There was nothing more to be said.