passed the sublimest music
plucked from the heart of wood or wire.

Arrived on the gravel ledge outside the building, they paused in a
shaft of light, still intent on their subject; till the inspiriting
rhythm of a polka shattered the stillness, and Honor, turning hastily,
caught sight of an erect figure in the doorway behind her.

"There's Theo. He seems to be looking for me," she said. "Why, we
must have talked through two dances. Come."

But at the foot of the verandah steps Lenox held out his hand.

"The evening is ended for me. I am going straight home, to think over
all you have said. I'll be round by ten to-morrow. Good-night--and
thank you."

He italicised the last words by a vigorous hand-clasp; and a moment
later she stood in the doorway, confronting her husband. A glance at
his face put her laughing apology to flight.

"I tell you what it is, Honor," he broke out hotly, "you're going too
far altogether. Here has Maurice been letting half Dalhousie know that
he couldn't find you anywhere; and the last dance--was mine. Heaven
knows where you buried yourselves. I didn't attempt to look. Lenox
has no business to monopolise you in this way. Woman-hater, indeed!"

"It was not _his_ fault," she flashed out, in an impulse more generous
than wise: but her blood was as quick to take fire as his own.

"Then it was yours, which is fifty times worse."

Honor lifted her head with a superb dignity of gesture.

"As you please," she said quietly. "It is useless to attempt
explanation here, or anywhere, till you are more . . like yourself."

Returning couples were by now besieging the doorway; and she passed on
into the ballroom, her head still high, her lips compressed, lest
others should note their tendency to quiver. A woman who loves the man
of her choice with every fibre of her being does not readily forget,
though she may forgive, his first rough words to her.

Honor was claimed at once by Kenneth Malcolm, a favourite partner, boy
though he was. But the keen edge of her interest was blunted. She
wanted one thing only to be alone with Theo; to set his mind at rest:
and those 'separated selves,' who drew her like nothing else on earth,
became of a sudden mere voluble obstructions between herself and her
desire.

Half an hour later she came up to him, where he stood, laughing and
talking in a group of men.

"I am tired, Theo," she said in a low tone. "Mr Maurice is getting my
dandy for me.