to his weary
eyes, when first he caught sight of her across the crowded room, she had
never seemed more exquisite, nor more desirable. She was dressed all in
white, with arms and shoulders bare, her fair hair dressed in the quaint
mode of the moment with a high comb and a multiplicity of curls. She had
a bunch of white roses in her belt and carried a shawl of gossamer lace
that encircled her shoulders, like a diaphanous cobweb, through which
gleamed the shimmering whiteness of her skin.

She did not see him of course: he was only one of so many in a crowd of
English officers who were about to fight and to die for her country and
her cause as much as for their own. But to him she was the only living,
breathing person in the room--all the others were phantoms or puppets
that had no tangible existence for him save as a setting, a background
for her.

And poor Bobby would so gladly have thrown all pride to the winds for
the right to run straight to her across the width of the room, to fall
at her feet, to encircle her knees, and to wring from her a word of
comfort or of trust. So strong was this impulse, that for one moment it
seemed absolutely irresistible; but the next she had turned to Maurice
de St. Genis, who was never absent from her side, and who seemed to
hover over her with an air of proprietorship and of triumphant mastery
which caused poor Bobby to grind his heel into the oak floor, and to
smother a bitter curse which had risen insistent to his lips.

III

Madame la Duchesse d'Agen spoke to him once, while he stood by watching
Crystal's dainty form walking through the mazes of a quadrille with her
hand in that of St. Genis.

"They look well matched, do they not, Mr. Clyffurde?" Madame said in
broken English and with something of her usual tartness; "and you? are
you not going to recognise old friends, may I ask?"

He turned abruptly, whilst the hot blood rushed up to his cheek, so
sudden had been the wave of memory which flooded his brain, at the sound
of Madame's sharp voice. Now he stooped and kissed the slender little
hand which was being so cordially held out to him.

"Old friends, Madame la Duchesse?" he queried with a quick sigh of
bitterness. "Nay! you forget that it was as a traitor and a liar that
you knew me last."

"It was as a young fool that I knew you all the time," she retorted
tartly, even though a kindly look and a kindly smile tempered the
gruffness of her sally. "The male creature,