uaintance would have accepted his
remark as a challenge,--would have smiled, or doubted, or answered him
with some speech that would have been a leading question. But with
this girl all is different. She takes his words literally, and, while
believing them, shows herself utterly careless of the belief.

Dorian, passing his arm round her waist, leads her out into the room,
and again they waltz, in silence,--he having nothing to say to her,
she being so filled with joy at the bare motion that she cares no more
for converse. At last,

"Like some tired bee that flags
Mid roses over-blown,"

she grows languid in his arms, and stops before a door that leads into
a conservatory. It has been exquisitely fitted up for the occasion,
and is one glowing mass of green and white and crimson sweetness. It
is cool and faintly lit. A little sad fountain, somewhere in the
distance, is mourning sweetly, plaintively,--perhaps for some lost
nymph.

"You will give me another dance?" says Branscombe, taking her card.

"If I have one. Isn't it funny?--I feared when coming I should not get
a dance at all, because, of course, I knew nobody; yet I have had more
partners than I want, and am enjoying myself so much."

"Your card is full," says Branscombe, in a tone that suggests a
national calamity. "Would you--would you throw over one of these
fellows for me?"

"I would, in a minute," says Miss Broughton, naively; "but, if he
found me out afterwards, would he be angry?"

"He sha'n't find you out. I'll take care of that. The crowd is
intense. Of course"--slowly--"I won't ask you to do it, unless you
wish it. Do you?"

"There is one name on that card I can't bear," says Miss Broughton,
with her eyes fixed upon a flower she holds. Her dark lashes have
fallen upon her cheeks, and lie there like twin shadows. He can see
nothing but her mobile lips and delicately pencilled brows. He is
watching her closely, and now wonders vaguely if she is a baby or a
coquette.

"Show me the man you would discard," he says, running her pencil down
her programme.

"There,--stop there. The name is Huntley, is it not? Yes. Well, he is
old, and fat, and horrid; and I know he can't dance. You may draw the
pencil across his name,--if you are sure, _quite sure_, he won't find
me out."

"He shall not. But I would far rather you condemned that fair-haired
fellow you were talking to just now," says Dorian, who is vaguely,
faintly jealous of young Bellew.