rall!

Her face is marvelously bright and happy, however, as she rises
precipitately to her feet, much to Beauclerk's relief. It has gone quite
far enough he tells himself--five minutes more and he would have found
himself in a rather embarrassing position. Really these pretty girls are
very dangerous.

"Come, we must go back to the ballroom," says she gaily. "We have been
here an unconscionable time. I am afraid my partner for this dance has
been looking for me, and will scarcely forgive my treating him so badly.
If I had only told him I _wouldn't_ dance with him he might have got
another partner and enjoyed himself."

"Better to have loved and lost," quotes Beauclerk in his airiest manner.
It is _so_ airy that it strikes Joyce unpleasantly. Surely after
all--after----She pulls herself together angrily. Is she _always_ to
find fault with him? Must she have his whole nature altered to suit her
taste?

"Ah, there is Dicky Browne," says she, glancing from where she is now
standing at the door of the conservatory to where Mr. Browne may be seen
leaning against a curtain with his lips curved in a truly benevolent
smile.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Now the nights are all past over
Of our dreaming, dreams that hover
In a mist of fair false things:
Night's afloat on wide wan wings."

"Why, so it is! Our _own_ Dicky, in the flesh and an admirable temper
apparently," says Mr. Beauclerk. "Shall we come and interview him?"

They move forward and presently find themselves at Mr. Browne's elbow;
he is, however, so far lost in his kindly ridicule of the poor silly
revolving atoms before him, that it is not until Miss Kavanagh gives his
arm a highly suggestive pinch that he learns that she is beside him.

"_Wough!_" says he, shouting out this unclassic if highly expressive
word without the slightest regard for decency. "_What_ fingers you've
got! I really think you might reserve that kind of thing for Mr. Dysart.
_He'd_ like it."

This is a most infelicitous speech, and Miss Kavanagh might have
resented it, but for the strange fact that Beauclerk, on hearing it,
laughs heartily. Well, if _he_ doesn't mind, it can't matter, but how
silly Dicky can be! Mr. Beauclerk continues to laugh with much
enjoyment.

"Try him!" says he to Miss Kavanagh, with the liveliest encouragement in
his tone. If it occurs to her that, perhaps, lovers, as a rule, do not
advise their sweethearts to play fast and loose with other me