koned to Eddie Helston, who was
close beside her.

"Shall we try our dance?"

The young men of the house, a group of young guardsmen and diplomats,
gathered round, laughing and clapping. Kitty's dancing had become famous
during the winter as one of her many extravagances. She no longer
recited; literature bored her; motion was the only poetry. So she had
been carefully instructed by a <i>danseuse</i> from the Opera, and in many
points, so the enthusiasts declared, had bettered her instructions. She
was now in love with a tempestuous Spanish dance, taught her by a gypsy
<i>senorita</i> who had been one of the sensations of the London season. It
required a partner, and she had been practising it with young Helston,
for several mornings past, in the empty ballroom. Helston had spread its
praises abroad; and all Haggart desired to see it.

"There!" said Kitty, pointing her partner to a particular spot on the
terrace. "I think that will do. Where are the castanets, I wonder?"

"Kitty!" said a voice behind her. Ashe emerged from the drawing-room.

"Kitty, please! It is nearly midnight. Everybody is tired--and you
yourself must be worn out! Say good-night, and let us all go to bed."

She turned. Willam's voice was low, but peremptory. She shook back her
hair from her temples and neck, with the gesture he had learned to
dread.

"Nobody's tired--and nobody wants to go to bed. Please stand out of the
way, William. I want plenty of room for my steps."

And she began pirouetting, as though to try the capacities of the space,
humming to herself.

"Helston--this must be, please, for another night," said Ashe,
resolutely, in the young man's ear. "Lady Kitty is much too tired."
Then to Lady Edith, and the Dean--"Lady Edith, it would be very kind of
you to persuade my wife to go to bed. She never knows when she is done!"

Lady Edith warmly acquiesced, and, hurrying up to Kitty, she tried to
persuade her in soft, caressing phrases.

"I stand on my rights!" said the Dean, following her. "If my hostess is
used up to-night, there'll be no hostess for me to-morrow."

Kitty looked at them all, silent--her head bending forward, a curious
<i>mechant</i> look in the eyes that shone beneath the slightly frowning
brows. Meanwhile, by her previous order, a footman had brought out two
silver lamps and placed them on a small table a little way behind her.
Whether it was from some instinctive sense of the beauty of the small
figure in th