A ghost of a shrug completed the sentence.

"I'm awfully sorry. I didn't flatter myself you'd notice----" Roy said simply. There were moments when she made him feel vexatiously young.

"You see--it was my novel--got me by the hair. And when that happens, I'm rather apt to let things slide. Anyway, you got the better man. And if you found _him_ dull, I'd have been nowhere."

She was silent a moment. Then: "I think--if you don't mind--we'll leave Major Desmond out of it," she said; adding, with a distinct change of tone: "What's the hidden charm in that common little Miss Delawny? I saw you dancing with her again to-day."

The subtle flattery of the question might have taken effect, had it not followed on her perplexing remark about Lance. As it was, he resented it.

"Why not? She's quite a nice little person."

"I daresay. But we've plenty of nice girls in our own set."

"Oh, plenty. But I rather bar set mania. I've a catholic taste in human beings!"

"And I've an ultra fastidious one!" Look and tone gave her statement a delicately personal flavour. "Besides, out here ... there are limits----"

"And I must respect them, on penalty of your displeasure?" His tone was airily defiant. "Well--make me out a list of irreproachables, and I'll work them off in rotation--between whiles!"

The implication of that last subtly made amends: and she had a taste for the minor subtleties of intercourse.

"I shall do nothing of the kind! You're perfectly graceless this evening! I suspect all that scribbling goes to your head sometimes.

Sitting on Olympian heights, controlling destinies! I suppose we earthworms down below all look pretty much alike? To discriminate between mere partners--is human. To embrace them indiscriminately--divine!"

Roy laughed. "Oh, if it came to embracing----"

"Even an Olympian might be a shade less catholic?" she queried with one of her looks, that stirred in Roy sensations far removed from Olympian.

Random talk did not flourish in Miss Arden's company: delicately, insistently she steered it back to the focal point of interest--herself and the man of the moment.

From the circular drive they wandered on, unheeding; and when they re-entered the Hall a fresh dance had begun. Under the arch they paused.

Miss Arden's glance scanned the room and reverted to Roy. The last ten minutes had appreciably advanced their intimacy.

"Shall we?" he asked, returning her look with interest. "Is the luck in again?"

Her eyes a.s.sented. He slipped an arm round her--and once more they danced....

Roy had been Olympian indeed had he not perceived the delicate flattery implied in his apparent luck. Lance had not given his message. Yet two dances were available. The inference was not without its insidious effect on a man temperamentally incapable of conceit.

The valse was nearly half over, when the least little drag on his arm so surprised him that he stopped almost opposite the main archway;--and caught sight of Lance, evidently looking for some one.

"Oh--there he is!" Miss Arden's low tone was almost flurried--for her.

"D'you want him?"

"Well--I suppose he wants me. This was his dance."

"Good Lord! What a mean shame," Roy flashed out. "Why on earth didn't you tell me? Wouldn't for the world...."

Her colour rose under his heated protest. "I never hang about for unpunctual partners. If they don't turn up in time--it's their loss."

Roy, intent on Lance, was scarcely listening. "He's seen us now. Come along. Let's explain."

It was Miss Arden who did the explaining in a manner all her own.

"Well--what became of you?" she asked, smiling in response to Desmond's look of interrogation. "As you didn't appear, I concluded you'd either forgotten or been caught in a rubber."

"Bad shots,--both," Desmond retorted with a direct look.

"I'm awfully sorry ... I hadn't a notion----" Roy began--and checked himself, perceiving that he could not say much without implicating his partner.

This time Desmond's smile had quite another quality. "You're very welcome. Carry on. Don't mind me. It's half over."

"A model of generosity!" Miss Arden applauded him. "I'm free for the next--if you'd care to have it instead."

"Thanks very much; but I'm not," Desmond answered serenely.

"The great little Banter-Wrangle--is it? You could plead a misunderstanding and bribe Mr Sinclair to save the situation!"

"Hard luck on Sinclair. But it's not Mrs Ranyard. I'm sorry----"

"Don't apologise. If you're satisfied, I am."

For all her careless tone, Roy had never seen her so nearly put out of countenance. Desmond said nothing; and for a moment--the briefest--there fell an awkward silence. Then with an air of marked graciousness she turned to Roy.

"We are generously permitted to go on, with a clear conscience!"

But for Roy the charm was broken. Her cavalier treatment of Lance annoyed him; and beneath the surface play of looks and words he had detected the flash of steel. It was some satisfaction that Lance had given as good as he received. But he felt troubled and curious. And he was likely to remain so. Lance, he very well knew, would say precisely nothing.

The girl, as if divining his thoughts, combated them with the delicately pointed weapons of her kind--and prevailed.

Again they wandered in the darkening garden and returned to find the Boston in full swing. Again Miss Arden's glance travelled casually round the room. And Roy saw her start; just enough to swear by....

Desmond was dancing with Miss Delawny----!

The frivolous comment on Roy's lips was checked by the look in his partner's eyes. Impossible not to wonder if Lance had actually been engaged; or if----?

In any case--a knock for Miss Arden's vanity. A shade too severe, perhaps; yet sympathy for her was tinged with exultation that Lance had held his own. Mrs Ranyard was right. Here was a man set firmly on his feet....

Miss Arden's voice drew his wandering attention back to herself. "We may as well finish this. Or are you also--engaged?"

Her light stress on the word held a significance he did not miss.

"To you--if you will!" he answered gallantly, hand on heart. "More than I deserve--as you said; but still----"

"It's just possible for a woman to be magnanimous!" she capped him, smiling. "And it's just possible for a man to be--the other thing!

Remember that--when you get back to your eternal scribbling!"

An hour later he rode homeward with a fine confusion of sensations and impressions, doubts and desires seething in his brain. Miss Arden was delightful, but a trifle unsettling. She must not be allowed to distract him from the work he loved.