onvinced me
that my lady was with him. I thrust myself unceremoniously into their
midst. Dona Marguerite sought to interpose, but, with a bow, I slipped
around her, and bent to salute the hand which Alisanda held out to me. I
was relieved to see that, like the rest of the ladies present, she was
dressed in the Spanish national mode, and also that she seemed in good
health and spirits.

"God keep you, _amigo_!" she said in a clear voice.

"_Muchas gracias_, senorita! May I beg the honor of your first dance?"

"It is yours, senor," she responded.

The other men fell away as she took my arm. Don Pedro stepped forward as
though to interpose, but desisted at a sign from Dona Marguerite. I
entered the ballroom with colors flying and the loveliest girl in all
the world upon my arm. For the moment Fortune was with me. The Spanish
dance had reached an end, and the musicians were striking up a waltz.
Nothing could have suited me better. Dancing was one of my few
accomplishments, and it was the very poetry of love and life to circle
about the long room with my darling in my arms, in rhythm to the pulsing
throb of the sweetest and softest of music.

It was no more than human that my bliss should key yet higher with a
tang of triumph as I glided with my lovely partner under the nose of
the scowling Salcedo and past the lowering visage of his Andalusian
aide. It might be that I was to meet my death from one or the other of
them, but for the time at least I was the happiest man beneath heaven. I
was in Paradise.

Before I was forced to relinquish her to Dona Marguerite at the stopping
of the music, I received my dear girl's pledge to give me all the
waltzes of the evening. More she dared not promise for fear of the
interference of her aunt. As may be imagined, it was a severe trial to
see her led out by another partner, even though she accepted Pike
instead of Medina for the voluptuous _fandango_ and though Dona Dolores
contrived to pilot me into the set in which my lady danced the minuet as
partner to His Excellency, Don Nimesio.

Before the close of the _baile_, Medina's persistence and his open
warning off of the other officers won him two dances, strive as my lady
would to avoid him. But even he lacked the assurance to interfere with
Salcedo's marked attentions, and, for the rest, Pike, Malgares, and
myself contrived to foil him in every attempt, with the two exceptions
mentioned. For myself, I had the divine joy of dancin