"But not so malignantly, I hope," says the heiress brilliantly, who, like most worthy people, can never see beyond her own nose. "For my part I like old friends much better than new." She looks round for the appreciation that should attend this sound remark, and is gratified to find Dysart is smiling at her. Perhaps the core of that smile might not have been altogether to her taste--most cores are difficult of digestion. To her, to whom all things are new, where does the flavor of the old come in?

Beauclerk is looking at Joyce.

"I hope the prospect cheers you too," says he a little sharply, as if nettled by her determined silence and bent on making her declare herself. "You, I trust, will be here next February."

"Sure to be!" says she with an enigmatical smile. "Not a jot or t.i.ttle of your enjoyments will be lost to you in the coming year. Both your friends--Miss Maliphant and I--will be here to welcome you when you return."

Something in her manner, in the half-defiant light in her eyes, puzzles Beauclerk. What has happened to her since they last were together? Not more than an hour ago she had seemed--er--well. Inwardly he smiles complacently. But now. Could she? Is it possible? Was there a chance that----

"Miss Kavanagh," begins he, moving toward her. But she makes short work of his advance.

"I repent," says she, turning a lovely, smiling face on Dysart. "A while ago I said I was too tired to dance. I did myself injustice. That waltz--listen to it"--lifting up an eager finger--"would it not wake an anchorite from his ascetic dreams? Come. There is time.".

She has sprung to her feet--life is in every movement. She slips her arm into Dysart's. Not understanding--yet half understanding, moves with her--his heart on fire for her, his puzzlement rendering him miserable.

Beauclerk, with that doubt of what she really knows full upon him, is wiser. Without hesitation he offers his arm to Miss Maliphant; and, so swift is his desire to quit the scene, he pa.s.ses Dysart and Joyce, the latter having paused for a moment to recover her fan.

"You see!" says Beauclerk, bending over the heiress, when a turn in the conservatory has hidden him from the view of those behind. "I told you!"

He says nothing more. It is the veriest whisper, spoken with an a.s.sumption of merriment very well achieved. Yet, if she would have looked at him, she could have seen that his very lips are white. But as I have said, Miss Maliphant's mind has not been trained to the higher courses.

"Yes. One can see!" laughs she happily. "And it is charming, isn't it?

To find two people thoroughly in love with each other now-a-days, is to believe in that mad old world of romance of which we read. They're very nice too, both of them. I do like Joyce. She's one in a thousand, and Mr. Dysart is just suited to her. They are both thorough! There's no nonsense about them. Now that you have pointed it out to me, I think I never saw two people so much in love with each other as they."

Providentially, she is looking away from him to where a quadrille is forming in the ballroom, so that the deadly look of hatred that adorns his handsome face is unknown to her.

Meantime, Joyce, with that convenient fan recovered, is looking with sad eyes at Dysart.

"Come; the music will soon cease," says she.

"Why do you speak to me like that?" cries he vehemently. "If you don't want to dance, why not say so to me? Why not trust me? Good heavens! if I were your bitterest enemy you could not treat me more distantly. And yet--I would die to make you happy."

"Don't!" says she in a little choking sort of way, turning her face from him. She struggles with herself for a moment, and then, still with her face averted, says meekly: "Thank you, then. If you don't mind, I should rather not dance any more to-night."

"Why didn't you say that at first?" says he, with a last remnant of reproach. "No; there shall be no more dancing to-night for either you or me. A word, Joyce!" turning eagerly toward her, "you won't forget your promise about that walk to-morrow?"

"No. No, indeed."

"Thank you!"

They are sitting very close together, and almost insensibly his hand seeks and finds hers. It was lying idle on her lap, and lifting it, he would have raised it to his lips, but with a sharp, violent action she wrests it from him, and, as a child might, hides it behind her.

"If you would have me believe in you----No, no, not that," says she, a little incoherently, her voice rendering her meaning with difficulty.

Dysart, astonished, stands back from her, waiting for something more; but nothing comes, except two large tears, that steal heavily, painfully, down her cheeks.

She brushes them impatiently away.

"Forgive me," she says, somewhat brokenly. "To you, who are so good to me, I am unkind, while to those who are unkind to me I----" She is trying to rally. "It was a mere whim, believe me. I have always hated demonstrations of any sort, and why should you want to kiss my hand?"

"I shouldn't," says he. "If----" His eyes have fallen from her eyes to her lips.

"Never mind," says she; "I didn't understand, perhaps. But why can't you be content with things as they are?"

"Are you content with them?"

"I think so. I have been examining myself, and honestly I think so,"

says she a little feverishly.

"Well, I'm not," returns he with decision. "You must give me credit for a great private store of amiability, if you imagine that I am satisfied to take things as they now exist--between you and me!"

"You have your faults, you see, as well as another," says she with a frown. "You are persistent! And the worst of it is that you are generally right." She frowns again, but even while frowning glances sideways from under her long lashes with an expression hardly uncivil.

"That is the worst crime in the calendar. Be wrong sometimes, an' you love me, it will gain you a world of friends."

"If it could gain me your love in return, I might risk it," says he boldly. "But that is hopeless I'm afraid," shaking his head. "I am too often in the wrong not to know that neither my many frailties nor my few virtues can ever purchase for me the only good thing on which my soul is set."

"I have told you of one fault, now hear another," says she capriciously.

"You are too earnest! What," turning upon him pa.s.sionately, as if a little ashamed of her treatment of him, "is the use of being earnest?

Who cares? Who looks on, who gives one moment to the guessing of the meaning that lies beneath? To be in earnest in this life is merely to be mad. Pretend, laugh, jest, do anything, but be what you really are, and you will probably get through the world in a manner, if not satisfactory to yourself, at all events to '_les autres_.'"

"You preach a crusade against yourself," says he gently. "You preach against your own conscience. You are the least deceptive person I know.

Were you to follow in the track you lay out for others, the cruelty of it would kill you.

"To your own self be true, And----"

"Yes, yes; I know it all," says she, interrupting him with some irritation. "I wish you knew how--how unpleasant you can be. As I tell you, you are always right. That last dance--it is true--I didn't want to have anything to do with it; but for all that I didn't wish to be told so. I merely suggested it as a means of getting rid of----"

"Miss Maliphant," says Dysart, who is feeling a little sore. The disingenuousness of this remark is patent to her.

"No; Mr. Beauclerk," corrects she, coldly.

"Forgive me," says Dysart quickly, "I shouldn't have said that. Well,"

drawing a long breath, "we have got rid of them, and may I give you a word of advice? It is disinterested because it is to my own disadvantage. Go to your room--to your bed. You are tired, exhausted.

Why wait to be more so. Say you will do as I suggest."

"You want to get rid of me," says she with a little weary smile.

"That is unworthy of an answer," gravely; "but if a 'yes' to it will help you to follow my advice, why, I will say it. Come," rising, "let me take you to the hall."

"You shall have your way," says she, rising too, and following him.

A side door leading to the anteroom on their left, and thus skirting the ballroom without entering it, brings them to the foot of the central staircase.

"Good-night," says Dysart in a low tone, retaining her hand for a moment. All round them is a crowd separated into twos and threes, so that it is impossible to say more than the mere commonplace.

"Good night," returns she in a soft tone. She has turned away from him, but something in the intense longing and melancholy of his eyes compels her to look back again. "Oh, you have been kind! I am not ungrateful,"

says she with sharp contrition.

"Joyce, Joyce! Let me be the grateful one," returns he. His voice is a mere whisper, but so fraught is it with pa.s.sionate appeal that it rings in her brain for long hours afterward.