o
perfectly."

And the little man trotted off to deliver his message, jerking his arms
and cracking his fingers with a real delight. It was not often that he
got the chance of swearing at his brothers under the protection of
Prince Eitel of Altschloss.

Meanwhile Louis Raincy had not been misusing his time. He knew he had
come late in the day, and he was conscious of the queue of aspirants
forming behind him.

At first Patsy listened with indifference, her eyes on the other side of
the room and her chin in the air. She was so sorry, but she thought that
of course Louis had all his arrangements made long before. She had seen
him from the time they came in, yet while she was sitting beside his
mother, he had never seen fit to come near them!

Whereupon Louis explained. He had been busy--the onerous duties of an
attache--and so forth.

Patsy kept him awhile on the tenterhooks. He went on to remind her of
the burn of the Glen-wood. He described their nests in the beech-butt
and under the shelter of the great march dyke. He would have spoken of
the race across the moors and the rescue at the White Gates, save that
by instinct he knew that her thoughts would at once be carried to Stair
Garland, the man who _was_ a man and as such had played the leading part
on these occasions. He hated even to see the Duke of Lyonesse limp and
to think that he had not even done _that_ himself!

"Well, the one after next!" said Patsy carelessly, after consulting the
list of dances for those she had marked with her own hieroglyphic.

"Meanwhile, stay here with Lady Lucy till I am ready. I am certainly not
going to seek you up and down the ball-room."

This she said because she noticed that the Arlington was beginning to
waft signals in the young man's direction with her fan. Therefore,
before she took her next partner's arm, she saw Louis sit down beside
his delighted mother, and talking to her in a manner so completely
absorbed that he never so much as raised his eyes.

Patsy proved perfectly entrancing when it came to be Louis's turn to
dance with her, but before the end of the music they dropped out, for
Patsy said, "Now we shall climb the bank till we find our nook!"

And taking the young man's hand they ran nimbly up the stairs till they
came to a dimly curtained recess which, if the truth must be told, Patsy
had just vacated.

"Oh," said Louis, delighted, "you are as clever at finding hidie-holes
in Hertford House as you use