in his hand stopped as
one compelled.

"Are you waiting for someone, Miss de Vigne? Or may I escort you?"

She looked at him with a faint smile as if in pity for his
disappointment. "Too late, I am afraid, Captain Brent. I have promised
Sir Eustace to skate with him."

"Who?" Brent glanced towards the rink. "Why, he's down there already
dancing about with your little cousin. That's her laugh. Don't you hear
it?"

Dinah's laugh, clear and ringing, came to them on the still air. Rose's
slim figure stiffened very slightly, barely perceptibly, at the sound.
"Sir Eustace has forgotten his engagement," she said icily. "Yes, Captain
Brent, I will come with you."

"Good business!" he said heartily. "It's a glorious night. Somebody said
there was a change coming; but I don't believe it. Maddening if a thaw
comes before the luging competition. The run is just perfection now. I'm
going up there presently. It's glorious by moonlight."

He chattered inconsequently on, happy in the fact that he had secured the
prettiest girl in the hotel for his partner, and not in the least
disturbed by any lack of response on her part. To skate with her hand in
hand was the utmost height of his ambition just then, his brain not being
of a particularly aspiring order.

Down on the rink all was gaiety and laughter. The lights shone ruby,
emerald, and sapphire, upon the darting figures. The undernote of the
rushing skates made magic music everywhere. The whole scene was
fantastic--a glittering fairyland of colour and enchantment.

"Each evening seems more splendid than the last," declared Dinah.

"They always will if you spend them in my company," said Sir Eustace. "Do
you know I could very soon teach you to skate as perfectly as you dance?"

"I believe you could teach me anything," she answered happily.

"Given a free hand I believe I could," he said. "But the gift is yours,
not mine. You have the most wonderful knack of divining a mood. You adapt
yourself instinctively. I never knew anyone respond so perfectly to the
unspoken wish. How is it, I wonder?"

"I don't know," she answered shyly. "But I can't help understanding what
you want."

"Does that mean that we are kindred spirits?" he asked, and suddenly the
clasp of his hands was close and intimate.

"I expect it does," said Dinah; but she said it with a touch of
uneasiness. The voice that had spoken within her the night before,
warning her, urging her to be gone, was beginning to