gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even."

He wrote his name on her programme. He was feeling timid and
self-distrustful, and having taken a dance near the beginning he
hesitated perceptibly before taking another lower down. She thanked
him gravely as he returned her the card and he thought he detected a
half-sorrowful expression in her face. No doubt she had been quick to
observe the constraint of his manner, and he felt she must be
suspecting something.

He was glad that the arriving guests were claiming her attention, and
he moved away and mingled with the crowd. But he was indifferent to
the scene, to the music and dancing, to all but Margaret. He could not
turn his eyes away from her. He took note of every man that asked a
dance of her. One of them kept writing on her programme for what
seemed to Morgan an unbearable time, Margaret looking on with a
tolerant half-smile. He knew the fellow well and hated him. Fledgling
at one or other of the learned professions, always aggressively smooth
and well-bred, a veritable paragon of polish without a single
redeeming mannerism, to Morgan he represented one large swagger. There
was something in the pose of the eye-glasses and in the clean-shaven
upper lip that told of boundless conceit and infinite self-assurance.
What right had he, was Morgan's indignant thought--and he made the
criticism as of a mere external fact from which he stood aloof--to be
so friendly with Margaret? How was it that she should show such
little insight as to be imposed upon by so specious a personality? No
doubt she thought him perfectly charming!

He was very angry and bitter, and already half-repented the impulse
that had driven him here. If the experience, in all its emotional
bearings, was a unique one, it was likewise a disagreeable one. When
the time came round for him to dance with Margaret he tried hard to
appear perfectly at his ease, and to make a show of good spirits.
Exercising the privilege of an old friend, he began to tease her about
the rapidity with which her programme had got filled.

"A girl must flirt a little," she asserted calmly, after a short
passage-at-arms. "You're not jealous, Morgan, are you?"

"I am only observant," he answered evasively.

"Your gift of observation must be truly wonderful--you manage to
exercise it at so great a distance, or perhaps you send out your
astral body to do the observing, which mus