Lord Arleigh laughed.

“What are they to do, Philippa?” he asked.  “They have each one the same duties to perform—­to please their partners and amuse themselves.  You would not have a ‘hapless lordling’ talk about science or metaphysics while he danced, would you?”

“No; but they might find some intelligent remarks to make.  You talk well, Norman, and listening to you makes me impatient with others.”

“You are very kind,” he said, and he took the pretty tablets from her hand.

“You have saved every waltz for me, Philippa.  I shall expect to have a dozen duels on my hands before morning.”

“’This is my favorite,” she said, as the music of the irresistible “Blue Danube” filled the room.

Then it seemed to her that they floated away into another sphere.  His arm was round her, his eyes smiling down into hers.  With youth, music, beauty, love, there was nothing wanting to complete the charm.

When it was over, he asked her if she would rest.

“No,” said Philippa; “I heard the playing of a fountain in the fernery.  I should like to go there.”

They went through the magnificent suite of rooms, and then through the conservatory into the dim, beautiful fernery, where the lamps glowed like stars, and the cool rippling water fell with a musical rhythm into the deep basin below.  They could hear the distant sound of music from the ball-room.  It was a time when love, if it lay in a man’s heart, would spring, into sweet, sudden life.

“If he loves me,” she said to herself, “he will tell me so now.”

“I like this better than the ball-room,” she said.  “By the way, you have not told me if you like my dress?” she added, anxious to bring him to the one subject she had at heart.  “Do you remember that when we were children, Norman, you used to criticise my dress?”

“Did I?  It was very rude of me.  I should not venture to criticise anything so marvelous now.  It is a wonderful dress, Philippa; in the light it looks like moonbeams, in the shade like snow.  Do you suppose I should ever have the courage to criticise anything so beautiful?”

“Do you really like it, Norman—­without flattery?”

“I never flatter, Philippa, not even in jest; you should know that.”

“I never heard you flatter,” she acknowledged.  “I took pains with my toilet, Norman, to please you; if it does so I am well content.”

“There is another waltz,” said Lord Arleigh; “we will go back to the ball-room.”

“Make him love me!” she said to herself, in bitter disdain.  “I might as well wish for one of the stars as for his love—­it seems just as far off.”

Chapter X.

Lord Arleigh did not go to Beechgrove as he had intended.  He found so many old friends and so many engagements in London that he was not inclined to leave it.  Then, too, he began to notice many little things which made him feel uncomfortable.  He began to perceive that people considered him in some kind of way as belonging to Miss L’Estrange; no matter how many surrounded her, when he entered a room they were seen one by one to disappear until he was left alone by her side.  At first he believed this to be accidental; after a time he knew that it must be purposely done.