ir Adrian, laughing. "I am positive it
will be awfully unkind of you to deprive any fellow of your society; but
be unkind, and scratch him out for my sake."

He speaks lightly, but her heart beats high with hope.

"For your sake," she repeats softly drawing her pencil across the name
written on her programme and substituting his.

"But you will give me more than this one dance?" queries Adrian. "Is
there nobody else you can condemn to misery out of all that list?"

"You are insatiable," she returns, blushing, and growing confused. "But
you shall have it all your own way. Here"--giving him her card--"take
what waltzes you will." She waltzes to perfection, and she knows it.

"Then this, and this, and this," says Adrian, striking out three names
on her card, after which they move away together and mingle with the
other dancers.

In the meantime, Florence growing fatigued, or disinclined to dance
longer with Dynecourt, stops abruptly near the door of a conservatory,
and, leaning against the framework, gazes with listless interest at the
busy scene around.

"You are tired. Will you rest for awhile?" asks Arthur politely; and,
as she bends her head in cold consent, he leads her to a cushioned seat
that is placed almost opposite to the door-way, and from which the
ball-room and what is passing within it are distinctly visible.

Sinking down amongst the blue-satin cushions of the seat he has pointed
out to her, Florence sighs softly, and lets her thoughts run, half
sadly, half gladly, upon her late interview with Sir Adrian. At least,
if he has guessed her secret, she knows now that he does not despise
her. There was no trace of contempt in the gentleness, the tenderness of
his manner. And how kindly he had told her of the intended change in his
life! "Their paths would lie far asunder for the future," he had said,
or something tantamount to that. He spoke no doubt of his coming
marriage.

Then she begins to speculate dreamily upon the sort of woman who would
be happy enough to be his wife. She is still idly ruminating on this
point when her companion's voice brings her back to the present. She had
so far forgotten his existence in her day-dreaming that his words come
to her like a whisper from some other world, and occasion her an actual
shock.

"Your thoughtfulness renders me sad," he is saying impressively. "It
carries you to regions where I can not follow you."

To this she makes no reply, regarding him only wi