"Never? My dear child, I have danced with you at scores."

"Oh yes, at children's parties; but never since I have grown
up--'come out,' I mean. Oh, Philip, is there anything in life so
delightful as one's first ball? I wish you would come out with us
sometimes. I should like to dance with you again now."

"Ah," he said, "my dancing days are over. I am a wallflower, Eve,
now; and my only use at balls is to fetch and carry for the
chaperons."

"Philip!" she cried reproachfully, "what a dreadful thing to say!
Besides, you used to dance so splendidly."

"Did I?" he asked; "I expect you would be less lenient now. Yes, I
will have another cup, please."

She filled it, and he took it from her in silence, wondering how he
could least obtrusively gain the knowledge of her mind he sought. He
had said to himself that if he could find her alone, it would be so
easy; just a word, an accent, would tell him how far she really
cared. But now that she was actually with him, it had become
strangely difficult. Very sadly he reflected that she had grown out
of his knowledge; away from her, she rested in his memory as a child
whom he could help. The actual presence of this young girl with the
deep eyes, in the first flush of her womanhood, corrected him; an
intolerable weight sealed his tongue, forbidding him to utter
Lightmark's name, greatly as he desired. He racked himself for
delicate circumlocutions, and it was only at last, by a gigantic
effort, when he realized that the afternoon waned, while he wasted
an unique occasion in humorous commonplace, that he broke almost
brutally into Eve's disquisitions on her various festivities to ask,
blushing like a girl, if Lightmark's picture progressed.

"I have had only a few sittings," she admitted, "and I expect they
will be the last here. Perhaps they will be continued abroad. You
know Mr. Lightmark is going to meet us in Switzerland, perhaps."

"You will like that?" suggested Rainham gravely.

She looked into her cup, beating a tattoo on the carpet with her
little foot nervously.

"Yes," she said, after a minute, "I think so."

There was nothing in her words, her tone, to colour this bare
statement of a simple fact. Only a second later, as if in a sudden
need of confidence, a resumption of her old childish habit towards
him, she raised her eyes to his, and in their clear, gray depths,
before they drooped again beneath the long lashes, he read her
secret. No words could have t