"I wonder," said Ina coolly. And then rather suddenly she rose. "Piers,
if I'm a prying cat, you're a hard-mouthed mule! There! Why can't you
admit that you're in love with her?"

Piers faced her with no sign of surprise. "Why don't you tell me that
you're in love with Guyes?" he said.

"Because it wouldn't be true!" She flung back her answer with a laugh
that sounded unaccountably bitter. "I have yet to meet the man who is
worth the trouble."

"Oh, really!" said Piers. "Don't flatter us more than you need! I'm sorry
for Guyes myself. If he weren't so keen on you, it's my belief you'd like
him better."

"Oh no, I shouldn't!" Ina spoke with a touch of scorn. "I shouldn't like
him either less or more, whatever he did. I couldn't. But of course he's
extremely eligible, isn't he?"

"Does that count with you?" said Piers curiously.

She looked at him. "It doesn't with you of course?" she said.

"Not in the least," he returned with emphasis.

She laughed again, and pushed the remnants of her fan with her foot. "It
wouldn't. You're so charmingly young and romantic. Well, mind the doctor
doesn't cut you out in your absence! He would be a much more suitable
_parti_ for her, you know, both as to age and station. Shall we go back
to the ball-room now? I am engaged to Dick for the next dance. I mustn't
cut him in his own house."

It was an annual affair but quite informal--this Boxing Night dance at
the Guyes'. Dick himself called it a survival of his schoolboy days, and
it was always referred to in the neighbourhood as "Dick's Christmas
party." He and his mother would no more have dreamed of discontinuing the
festivity than of foregoing their Christmas dinner, and the Roses of
Wardenhurst were invariably invited and as invariably attended it. Piers
was not so constant a guest. Dick had thrown him an open invitation on
the hunting-field a day or two before, and Piers, having nothing better
to do, had decided to present himself.

He liked dancing, and was easily the best dancer among the men. He also
liked Ina Rose, or at least she had always thought so, till that night.
They were friends of the hunting-field rather than of the drawing-room,
but they always drifted together wherever they met. Sir Beverley had
never troubled himself about the intimacy. The girl belonged to the
county, and if not quite the brilliant match for Piers that he would have
chosen, she came at least of good old English stock. He knew and liked
h