d up together and he laid his arm reverently
about her waist.

She saw his timidity and looked up at him with a kind smile.

"I must be very little," she said, "I never knew before that I was so
little."

He had thought he should recover himself when the music and motion began,
but he did not. He looked down at the delicate head which reached barely
to his beating heart, and a blur came before his sight; the light and the
crowd of dancers dazzled and confused him. The whirling movement made him
dizzy, and he had not expected to be dizzy. He began suddenly to be
conscious of his own immensity, the unusualness of his position, and of
the fact that here and there he saw a meaning smile; his heart beat
faster still, and he knew he had been led into a mistake. He swung round
and round too quickly for the music, missed a step, tried to recover
himself, became entangled in his partner's dress, trod on her poor little
feet, and fell headlong on the floor, dragging her with him and striking
against a passing couple.

It was his brother De Courcy with whom he had come in such violent
contact, and it was De Courcy who sprang to Delia's rescue, assisting her
to her feet with all possible grace, and covering her innocent confusion
with a brilliant speech, but not, however, before he had directed a
terrible scowl at the prostrate culprit and sworn furiously at him under
his breath. But Delia was very good to him and did not desert him in the
hour of his need, giving him only kind looks and managing to arrange that
he should lead her to her seat as if he had not been in disgrace at all.

But the shame and pain of his downfall were sharper pangs than he had
ever borne, and before the night was half over he slipped away from the
dangers and rushed home to his own room, where he lay awake through the
long hours, cursing himself for his folly, and tossing in a fever of
humiliation and grief.

In the morning when he came down to the breakfast table, the family were
already assembled, and the Judge had heard the story from De Courcy, who
told it all the more forcibly in the absence of Miss Vanuxem, who had
spent the night at the house of another relative.

When Tom entered, his paternal parent was ready to receive him.

"Trod on Miss Vanuxem's dress and tore it off her back in the ballroom,
did you?" he burst forth. "Made a fool of yourself and a bear-garden of
the Delisle House ballroom! What were you trying to dance for? Leave tha