ar
burlesque ended in the celebrated scene, "The Birth of the
Butterfly in the Bower of Ferns," with the entire company kissing
their finger-tips to a vociferous and satiated audience.

Then it was supper at Delmonico's, and a dance--and at last the
waltz promised him by Ailsa Paige.

Through the fixed unreality of things he saw her clearly, standing,
awaiting him, saw her sensitive face as she quietly laid her hand
on his--saw it suddenly alter as the light contact startled both.

Flushed, she looked up at him like a hurt child, conscious yet only
of the surprise.

Dazed, he stared back. Neither spoke; his arm encircled her; both
seemed aware of that; then only of the swaying rhythm of the dance,
and of joined hands, and her waist imprisoned. Only the fragrance
of her hair seemed real to him; and the long lashes resting on
curved cheeks, and the youth of her yielding to his embrace.

Neither spoke when it had ended. She turned aside and stood
motionless a moment, resting against the stair rail as though to
steady herself. Her small head was lowered.

He managed to say: "You will give me the next?"

"No."

"Then the next----"

"No," she said, not moving.

A young fellow came up eagerly, cocksure of her, but she shook her
head--and shook her head to all--and Berkley remained standing
beside her. And at last her reluctant head turned slowly, and,
slowly, her gaze searched his.

"Shall we rest?" he said.

"Yes. I am--tired."

Her dainty avalanche of skirts filled the stairs as she settled
there in silence; he at her feet, turned sideways so that he could
look up into the brooding, absent eyes.

And over them again--over the small space just then allotted them
in the world--was settling once more the intangible, indefinable
spell awakened by their first light contact. Through its silence
hurried their pulses; through its significance her dazed young eyes
looked out into a haze where nothing stirred except a phantom
heart, beating, beating the reveille. And the spell lay heavy on
them both.

"I shall bear your image always. You know it."

She seemed scarcely to have heard him.

"There is no reason in what I say. I know it. Yet--I am destined
never to forget you."

She made no sign.

"Ailsa Paige," he said mechanically.

And after a long while, slowly, she looked down at him where he sat
at her feet, his dark eyes fixed on space.

CHAPTER II

All the morning she had been busy