ree attempts to interject what I had to
say, but she stopped me each time, and started off on a new theme before
I could get more than a word in edgewise. I know that she must have
seen from my looks that I was not in the least degree disposed to the
flippant mood to which she herself pretended, and at last she either
was, or feigned to be, tired of my failure to respond to her.

"You are _bete_ to-night, _mon beau capitaine_," she said at last, and
with a humorously disdainful gesture of her fan she made a motion to
rise.

"Not yet, baroness," I said, taking the fan in my hand. "I have
something serious to say to you."

"I am not in the mind for anything serious tonight," she answered, "and
this is not the place for anything serious."

"I am in the mood," I said, "and the place will do well enough."

She flashed her eyes at me with a sudden anger.

"Is that an impertinence or a gaucherie?" she asked. A second later her
charming girlish smile lit up her face again, and rising from her seat
she dropped a little mock rustic courtesy. "If M. le Capitaine Fyffe
will honor me at my own humble residence, I am never abroad till one."
With that she shot me a curiously veiled glance and turned away, holding
up her hand as if to ask me to listen to the last strains of the music
which her own vehement chatter had already spoiled for everybody who
cared to listen to it. She had evidently a purpose in holding me off,
and I of course could form a reasonable guess as to what the nature
of that purpose was. I devoted myself to Violet for the rest of the
evening, and contrived so well to forget the baroness that by the time
at which I was compelled to take my leave I was restored to the state of
mind natural to an ardent lover who had only that day been lifted from
something very like despair to the fulfilment of his hope.

When the baroness took leave I helped her to adjust her costly fur
mantle. Violet was standing by, and the baroness was talking to her with
a pretence of animation which I know was intended to prevent me from
giving her a reminder of what had already passed between us. As she
turned to go she gave me a moment's chance. I had been waiting for it,
and I seized it instantly.

"To-morrow, then, at twelve," I said.

She turned, with her eyes wide open and angered, as if I had presumed in
speaking to her and had offered her an insult. But she changed her mind
in the merest fraction of time, and answered, smilingl