th uniforms, military, naval and diplomatic, British and Portuguese,
to be welcomed above by the Count and Countess of Redondo.

Lady O'Moy's entrance of the ballroom produced the effect to which
custom had by now inured her. Soon she found herself the centre of
assiduous attentions. Cavalrymen in blue, riflemen in green, scarlet
officers of the line regiments, winged light-infantrymen, rakishly
pelissed, gold-braided hussars and all the smaller fry of court and camp
fluttered insistently about her. It was no novelty to her who had been
the recipient of such homage since her first ball five years ago at
Dublin Castle, and yet the wine of it had gone ever to her head a
little. But to-night she was rather pale and listless, her rose-petal
loveliness emphasised thereby perhaps. An unusual air of indifference
hung about her as she stood there amid this throng of martial jostlers
who craved the honour of a dance and at whom she smiled a thought
mechanically over the top of her slowly moving fan.

The first quadrille impended, and the senior service had carried off
the prize from under the noses of the landsmen. As she was swept away
by Captain Glennie, she came face to face with Tremayne, who was passing
with Sylvia on his arm. She stopped and tapped his arm with her fan.

"You haven't asked to dance, Ned," she reproached him.

"With reluctance I abstained."

"But I don't intend that you shall. I have something to say to you." He
met her glance, and found it oddly serious--most oddly serious for her.
Responding to its entreaty, he murmured a promise in courteous terms of
delight at so much honour.

But either he forgot the promise or did not conceive its redemption to
be an urgent matter, for the quadrille being done he sauntered through
one of the crowded ante-rooms with Miss Armytage and brought her to the
cool of a deserted balcony above the garden. Beyond this was the river,
agleam with the lights of the British fleet that rode at anchor on its
placid bosom.

"Una will be waiting for you," Miss Armytage reminded him. She was
leaning on the sill of the balcony. Standing erect beside her, he
considered the graceful profile sharply outlined against a background
of gloom by the light from the windows behind them. A heavy curl of her
dark hair lay upon a neck as flawlessly white as the rope of pearls
that swung from it, with which her fingers were now idly toying. It
were difficult to say which most engaged his thought