if our acquaintance endures but twelve more hours. And
_that_," she added, considering me calmly, "is rather strange, I think.
Don't you?"

Ere I could reply came Sir Peter, talking loudly, protesting that it
was a monstrous shame for me to steal away their guest, that I was a
villain and all knew it, he himself best of all; and without more ado
he tucked her arm under his and marched triumphantly away, leaving me
there alone in the deserted room.

But as Elsin gained the door she turned, looking back, and, laying her
hand upon her lips, threw me a kiss behind Sir Peter's shoulders.

CHAPTER III

THE COQ D'OR

The days that followed were brilliant links in a fierce sequence of
gaiety; and this though the weather was so hot that the very candles in
their sconces drooped, dripping their melted wax on egrette and lace,
scarlet coat and scarf. A sort of midsummer madness attacked the city;
we danced in the hot moonlit nights, we drove at noontide, with the sun
flaring in a sky of sapphire, we boated on the Bronx, we galloped out
to the lines, escorted by a troop of horse, to see the Continental
outposts beyond Tarrytown--so bold they had become, and no "skinners,"
either, but scouts of Heath, blue dragons if our glasses lied not, well
horsed, newly saddled, holsters of bearskin, musket on thigh, and the
July sun a-flashing on crested helmet and crossed sling-buckles. And
how my heart drummed and the red blood leaped in me to beat in neck and
temple, at sight of my own comrades! And how I envied them, free to
ride erect and proud in the light of day, harnessed for battle, flying
no false colors for concealment--all fair and clean and aboveboard! And
I a spy!

We were gay, I say, and the town had gone mid-summer mad of its own
fancy--a fevered, convulsive reaction from a strain too long endured;
and while the outlook for the King was no whit better here, and much
worse in the South, yet, as it was not yet desperate, the garrison, the
commander, and the Governor made a virtue of necessity, and, rousing
from the pent inertia of the dreadful winter and shaking off the
lethargy of spring, paced their cage with a restlessness that quickened
to a mania for some relief in the mad distraction of folly and
frivolity.

And first, Sir Peter gave a ball at our house in honor of Elsin Grey,
and we danced in the state drawing-room, and in the hallway, and in the
south drawing-room, and Sir Henry walked a minuet with the Ho