* * * * *

Sir Charles regarded rather curiously that night one of his guests who arrived late.  Mr. Heatherbloom’s evening garments were not a Poole fit, and his white gloves, though white enough, had obviously been used and cleaned often.  But the host observed, also, that Mr. Heatherbloom held himself well, said just the right thing to the hostess, and moved through the assemblage with quite the proper poise.  He didn’t look bored, neither did he appear overimpressed by the almost palatial elegance of the ball-room.  He even managed to suppress any outward signs of elation at the sight of Miss Dalrymple with whom he had but the opportunity for a word or two, at first.  Naturally the center of attraction, the young girl found herself forced to dance often.  He, too, whirled around with others, just whom, he did not know; he dipped into Terpsichorean gaiety to escape the dowager’s inquisition regarding that haphazard flight from the Nevski and other details he did not wish to converse about.  But his turn came with Betty at last, and sooner than he had reason to expect.

“Ours is the next?” she said, passing him.

Was it?  He had ventured to write his name thrice on her card, but neither of the dances he had claimed was the next.

“I put your name down for this one myself,” she confessed to him a few moments later.  “Do you mind?”

Did he?  The evening wore away but too soon; he held her to him a little while, only over-quickly to be obliged to yield her to another.  And now, after a third period of waiting, the time came for their last dance.  He went for it as soon as the number preceding was over; he wanted, not only to miss none of it, but he hungered to snatch all the prelude he could.  The conventional-looking young personage she had been dancing with regarded the approaching Mr. Heatherbloom rather resentfully, but he moved straight as an arrow for her.  At once she stepped toward him, and he soon found himself walking with her across the smooth shining floor, on into the great conservatory.  Here were soft shadows and wondrous perfumes.  Mr. Heatherbloom breathed deeply.

“But a few days more, and we’re en route for home.”  It was the girl who spoke first—­lightly, gaily—­though there was a thrill in her tones.

He started and did not answer at once.  “That will be great, won’t it?” His voice, too, was light, but it did not seem so spontaneously glad as her own.

“You are pleased, aren’t you?” she said suddenly.

“Pleased?  Of course!”

A brief period of inexplicable constraint!  He looked at one of her hands resting on the edge of a great vase—­at a flower she held in her fingers.

“May I?” he said, and just touched it.

“Of course!” she laughed.  “A modest request, after all you’ve done for me!”

Her fingers placed it in the rented coat.

“There!” she murmured in a matter-of-fact tone, stepping back.