gaily, "do you get on with Esme Trenor?"

"He talked," she said in a voice perfectly audible to Esme.

Barres glanced toward Esme, secretly convulsed, but that young apostle
of Fear had swung one thin leg over the other and was now presenting
one shoulder and the back of his head to them both, apparently in
delightful conversation with Elsena Helmund, who was fed up on him and
his fears.

"You must always talk to your neighbours at dinner," insisted Barres,
still immensely amused. "Esme is a very popular man with fashionable
women, Dulcie,--a painter in much demand and much adored.... Why do
you smile?"

Dulcie smiled again, deliciously.

"Anyway," continued Barres, "you must now give the signal for us to
rise by standing up. I'm so proud of you, Dulcie, darling!" he added
impulsively; "--and everybody is mad about you!"

"You made me--" she laughed mischievously, "--out of a rag and a bone
and a hank of hair!"

"You made yourself out of nothing, child! And everybody thinks you
delightful."

"Do _you_?"

"You dear girl!--of course I do. Does it make such a difference to
you, Dulcie--my affection for you?"

"Is it--_affection_?"

"It certainly is. Didn't you know it?"

"I didn't--know--what it was."

"Of course it is affection. Who could be with you as I have been and
not grow tremendously fond of you?"

"Nobody ever did except you. Mr. Westmore was always nice. But--but
you are so kind--I can't express--I--c-can't----" Her emotion checked
her.

"Don't try, dear!" he said hastily. "We're going in to have a jolly
dance now. You and I begin it together. Don't you let any other fellow
take you away!"

She looked up, laughed blissfully, gazing at him with brilliant eyes a
little dimmed.

"They'll all be at your heels," he said, beginning to comprehend the
beauty he had let loose on the world, "--every man-jack of them, mark
my prophecy! But ours is the first dance, Dulcie. Promise?"

"I do. And I promise you the next--please----"

"Well, I'm host," he said doubtfully, and a trifle taken aback. "We'll
have some other dances together, anyway. But I couldn't monopolise
you, Sweetness."

The girl looked at him silently, then her grey, intelligent eyes
rested directly on Thessalie Dunois.

"Will you dance with her?" she asked gravely.

"Yes, of course. And with the others, too. Tell me, Dulcie, did you
find Miss Dunois agreeable?"

"I--don't--know."

"Why, you ought to like her. She's very attra