; very
little like it anywhere. It was a telltale, precious possession, and
Major King never could have made good a plea of hidden identity
against it in this world.

Frances had consolation enough for his alienation and absence from her
side if numbers could compensate for the withdrawal of the fealty of
one. She distributed her favors with such judicial fairness that the
tongue of gossip could not find a breach. At least until the tall
Scotsman appeared, with his defiant red hair and a feather in his
bonnet, his plaid fastened across his shoulder with a golden clasp.

Nobody knew when he arrived, or whence. He spoke to none as he walked
in grave stateliness among the merry groups, acknowledging bold
challenges and gay banterings only with a bow. The ladies from the
post had their guesses as to who he might be, and laid cunning little
traps to provoke him into betrayal through his voice. As cunningly he
evaded

them, with unsmiling courtesy, his steady gray eyes only seeming to
laugh at them behind his green mask.

Frances had finished a dance with a Robin Hood--the slender one in
billiard-cloth green--there being no fewer than four of them,
variously rounded, diversely clad, when the Scot approached her where
she stood with her gallant near the musicians' brake of palms.

A flask of wine, a book of verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness--

said the tall Highlandman, bending over her shoulder, his words low in
her ear. "Only I could be happy without the wine," he added, as she
faced him in quick surprise.

"Your penetration deserves a reward--you are the first to guess it,"
said she.

"Three dances, no less," said he, like a usurer demanding his toll.

He offered his arm, and straightway bore her off from the astonished
Robin Hood, who stood staring after them, believing, perhaps, that he
was the victim of some prearranged plan.

The spirit of his free ancestors seemed to be in the lithe, tall
Highlander's feet. There was no dancer equal to him in that room. A
thistle on the wind was not lighter, nor a wheeling swallow more
graceful in its flight.

Many others stopped their dancing to watch that pair; whisperings ran
round like electrical conjectures. Nola steered Major King near the
whirling couple, and even tried to maneuver a collision, which
failed.

"Who is that dancing with Frances Landcraft?" she breathed in the
major's ear.

"I didn't know it was Miss Landcraft," he repli