He had struck the right vein in the girl’s fancy, for she was in the mood for this exercise, and very willingly led the way into one of the more empty apartments.  What there was in this particular kind of dance which excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who looked in with the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, will remember that she was strangely carried away by it, and became almost fearful in the vehemence of her passion.  The sound of the castanets seemed to make her alive all over.  Dick knew well enough what the exhibition would be, and was almost afraid of her at these moments; for it was like the dancing mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary light amusement of joyous youth,—­a convulsion of the body and the mind, rather than a series of voluntary modulated motions.

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband.  Her eyes began to glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves.  Presently she noticed that Dick’s look was fixed upon her necklace.  His face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving the question, why she always wore something about her neck.  The chain of mosaics she had on at that moment displaced itself at every step, and he was peering with malignant, searching eagerness to see if an unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity, were hidden by her ornaments.

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it hastily in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her eyes narrowing in the way he had known so long and well.

“What is the matter, Cousin Elsie?  What do you stop for?” he said.

Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious light.  The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface—­thoughts took this opportunity to break out.

“You wouldn’t act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,—­would you, Elsie?” he asked.

It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the effect of his question.

Elsie colored,—­not much, but still perceptibly.  Dick could not remember that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before, in all his experience of her fitful changes of mood.  It had a singular depth of significance, therefore, for him; he knew how hardly her color came.  Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others, it betrays a profound inward agitation,—­a perturbation of the feelings far more trying than the passions which with many easily moved persons break forth in tears.  All who have observed much are aware that some men, who have seen a good deal of life in its less chastened aspects and are anything but modest, will blush often and easily, while there are delicate and sensitive women who can turn pale, or go into fits, if necessary, but are very rarely seen to betray their feelings in their cheeks, even when their expression shows that their inmost soul is blushing scarlet.