y beating time. And
he said:

"You ought to be dancing, child."

"Oh, no! Only it's a pity you don't want to."

"Yes! Do you understand that it must all be secret--underground?"

She covered his lips with the fan, and said: "You're not to think;
you're not to think--never! When can I come?"

"I must find the best way. Not to-morrow. Nobody must know, Nell--for
your sake--for hers--nobody!"

She nodded, and repeated with a soft, mysterious wisdom: "Nobody."
And then, aloud: "Here's Oliver! It was awfully good of you to come.
Good-night!"

And as, on Oliver's arm, she left their little refuge, she looked back.

He lingered--to watch her through this one dance. How they made all the
other couples sink into insignificance, with that something in them
both that was better than mere good looks--that something not outre or
eccentric, but poignant, wayward. They went well together, those two
Dromores--his dark head and her fair head; his clear, brown, daring
eyes, and her grey, languorous, mesmeric eyes. Ah! Master Oliver was
happy now, with her so close to him! It was not jealousy that Lennan
felt. Not quite--one did not feel jealous of the young; something very
deep--pride, sense of proportion, who knew what--prevented that. She,
too, looked happy, as if her soul were dancing, vibrating with the music
and the scent of the flowers. He waited for her to come round once more,
to get for a last time that flying glance turned back; then found his
coat and hat and went.

XIII

Outside, he walked a few steps, then stood looking back at the windows
of the hall through some trees, the shadows of whose trunks, in the
light of a street lamp, were spilled out along the ground like the
splines of a fan. A church clock struck eleven. For hours yet she would
be there, going round and round in the arms of Youth! Try as he might
he could never recapture for himself the look that Oliver's face had
worn--the look that was the symbol of so much more than he himself could
give her. Why had she come into his life--to her undoing, and his own?
And the bizarre thought came to him: If she were dead should I really
care? Should I not be almost glad? If she were dead her witchery would
be dead, and I could stand up straight again and look people in the
face! What was this power that played with men, darted into them,
twisted their hearts to rags; this power that had looked through her
eyes when she put her fan, with his flowers, to her