if he wanted partners,
or anything of that sort? Some one is sure to look after him.'

'Oh, sure to!' said Jane, and they passed over the bridge together and
went into Mrs. Ogilvie's morning-room.

Having arrived there and secured two comfortable chairs, the power of
speech seemed suddenly to have deserted two persons whose conversation
was never brilliant, but who at least were seldom at a loss for
anything to say. It appeared as though Peter Ogilvie had brought Miss
Erskine to this distant room for no other purpose than to say to her,
in an absent-minded way, 'Is every one enjoying themselves, do you
think?'

'I think every one is quite happy,' said Jane, and added, with
characteristic frankness, 'I know I am!'

Peter gave her a quick glance, turning his eyes full upon her for a
moment as though to read something in the face beside him; then he
began with absorbed attention to twist the silk string of his ball
programme round and round his finger. The room where they sat was
singularly unlike those rose-shaded bowers which are considered
suitable to the needs of dancers who pause and rest in them. Its
austere furnishing had something almost solemn and mysterious about it;
and the stone walls hung with tapestry, on which quaint figures moved
restlessly with the draught from an open window, would have given an
eerie feeling to a man, for instance, sitting alone there at twelve
o'clock at night. But in the gloom and austerity of the still and
distant chamber sat Jane in white satin with pearls about her neck, and
the room was illumined by her.

'So you are enjoying yourself,' said Peter at last--Peter who never
made fatuous conversational remarks of this sort. The words, for no
reason in themselves, fell oddly, and were followed by a silence which
was disturbing and made for sudden self-consciousness wholly to be
condemned, and to be banished, if possible, directly. Jane, who did
not fidget aimlessly with things, began diligently to pluck a long
white feather out of her fan, and said in a voice that was deliberately
commonplace, 'We ought to go back now, oughtn't we? Let me see who
your next partner is, Peter, that I may send you back to dance with
her.' She stretched out her hand for the young man's programme.

But Peter sat absorbed, twisting its silk cord round his finger.
'Don't let's go yet,' he said, and the constrained silence fell between
them again. 'I want to ask you something, Jane.'

'Yes,'