great play of
shoulders and rattle of conversation. There could be no doubt, from Mr.
Ronald's attitude, that he worshipped the very chair she sat on. But I
was quite ruthless. I laid my hand on his shoulder, as he was stooping
over her like a hen over a chicken.

"Excuse me for one moment, Mr. Gilchrist!" said I.

He started and span about in answer to my touch, and exhibited a face of
inarticulate wonder.

"Yes!" I continued, "it is even myself! Pardon me for interrupting so
agreeable a _tete-a-tete_, but you know, my good fellow, we owe a first
duty to Mr. Robbie. It would never do to risk making a scene in the
man's drawing-room; so the first thing I had to attend to was to have
you warned. The name I go by is Ducie, too, in case of accidents."

"I--I say, you know!" cried Ronald. "Deuce take it, what are you doing
here?"

"Hush, hush!" said I. "Not the place, my dear fellow--not the place.
Come to my rooms, if you like, to-night after the party, or to-morrow in
the morning, and we can talk it out over a segar. But here, you know, it
really won't do at all."

Before he could collect his mind for an answer, I had given him my
address in St. James' Square, and had again mingled with the crowd.
Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in
the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I
watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my
fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the
Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a
preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young
lady; but I managed this interview with so much art that, while I was
scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to
keep Robbie beside me all the time, and to leave along with him when the
ordeal was over. We were just walking away arm in arm, when I spied my
friend the Major approaching, stiff as a ramrod and, as usual,
obtrusively clean.

"O! there's a man I want to know," said I, taking the bull by the horns.
"Won't you introduce me to Major Chevenix?"

"At a word, my dear fellow," said Robbie; and "Major!" he cried, "come
here and let me present to you my friend Mr. Ducie, who desires the
honour of your acquaintance."

The Major flushed visibly, but otherwise preserved his composure. He
bowed very low. "I'm not very sure," he said: "I have an idea we have
met before?"

"Inform