erately still. He had sworn to
himself that he would not play second fiddle on _this_ occasion at all
events, and he holds himself to his word. "But I feel as if I could not
play to-day. I should disgrace you. Let me get you another partner.
Captain Grant is out there, he----"

"Thank you. I shall be able to provide myself with a partner when I want
one," interrupts she, haughtily, turning abruptly away.

CHAPTER X.

"Nature has sometimes made a fool."

The fiddles are squeaking, the 'cellos are groaning, the man with the
cornet is making a most ungodly row. As yet, the band have the ballroom
all to themselves, and are certainly making the most of their time. Such
unearthly noises rarely, if ever, have been heard in it before. Why they
couldn't have tuned their instruments before coming is a question that
fills the butler's mind with wrath, but perhaps the long journey down
from Dublin would have untuned them all again, and left the players of
them disconsolate.

The dismal sounds penetrate into the rooms right and left of the
ballroom, but fail to kill the melancholy sweetness of the dripping
fountains or the perfume of the hundred flowers that gave their sleeping
draughts to all those who chose to come and inhale them. Mild draughts
that please the senses without stealing them.

The sounds even penetrate to the library, where Joyce is standing before
the low fire, that even in this July evening burns upon the hearth,
fastening her long gloves. She had got down before the others, and now,
finding the room empty, half wishes herself back again upstairs. But she
is so young, so full of a fresh delight in all the gaiety around her,
that she had hurried over her dressing, and, with the first dismal
sounds of the toning, had turned her steps its way.

The library seems cold to her, bare, unfriendly. Had she expected to
meet somebody there before her--somebody who had promised to get a fresh
tie in a hurry, but who had possibly forgotten all about it in the joy
of an after-dinner cigar?

It seems a long time since that first day when she had been startled by
his sudden reappearance at the Court. A long, _long_ time. Soon this
last visit of hers to the Court must come to an end. The Baltimores will
be going abroad in a fortnight or so--and he with them. The summer is
waning--dreary autumn coming. He will go--and----

A sense of dissatisfaction sits heavily on her, toning down to rather a
too cruel a deg