“Yes, it was,” said Violet Oliver simply, and Linforth laughed.

“Shall we dance?” he asked.

Mrs. Oliver nodded.

“Round the room as far as the door.  I am hungry.  We will go downstairs and have supper.”

Linforth could have wished for nothing better.  But the moment that his arm was about her waist and they had started for the door, Violet Oliver realised that her partner was the lightest dancer in the room.  She herself loved dancing, and for once in a way to be steered in and out amongst the couples without a bump or even a single entanglement of her satin train was a pleasure not to be foregone.  She gave herself up to it.

“Let us go on,” she said.  “I did not know.  You see, we have never danced together before.  I had not thought of you in that way.”

She ceased to speak, being content to dance.  Linforth for his part was content to watch her, to hold her as something very precious, and to evoke a smile upon her lips when her eyes met his.  “I had not thought of you in that way!” she had said.  Did not that mean that she had at all events been thinking of him in some way?  And with that flattery still sweet in his thoughts, he was aware that her feet suddenly faltered.  He looked at her face.  It had changed.  Yet so swiftly did it recover its composure that Linforth had not even the time to understand what the change implied.  Annoyance, surprise, fear!  One of these feelings, certainly, or perhaps a trifle of each.  Linforth could not make sure.  There had been a flash of some sudden emotion.  That at all events was certain.  But in guessing fear, he argued, his wits must surely have gone far astray; though fear was the first guess which he had made.

“What was the matter?”

Violet Oliver answered readily.

“A big man was jigging down upon us.  I saw him over your shoulder.  I dislike being bumped by big men,” she said, with a little easy laugh.  “And still more I hate having a new frock torn.”

Dick Linforth was content with the answer.  But it happened that Sybil Linforth was looking on from her chair in the corner, and the corner was very close to the spot where for a moment Violet Oliver had lost countenance.  She looked sharply at Sir John Casson, who might have noticed or might not.  His face betrayed nothing whatever.  He went on talking placidly, but Mrs. Linforth ceased to listen to him.

Violet Oliver waltzed with her partner once more round the room.  Then she said: 

“Let us stop!” and in almost the same breath she added, “Oh, there’s your friend.”

Linforth turned and saw standing just within the doorway his friend Shere Ali.

“You could hardly tell that he was not English,” she went on; and indeed, with his straight features, his supple figure, and a colour no darker than many a sunburnt Englishman wears every August, Shere Ali might have passed unnoticed by a stranger.  It seemed that he had been watching for the couple to stop dancing.  For no sooner had they stopped than he advanced quickly towards them.