“Call things by their right names, Damon,” said Dalrymple, good-naturedly.  “If you were a parvenu giving a party, and wanted all these fine folks to be seen at your house, that would be lion-hunting; but being whom and what you are, it is hero-worship—­a disease peculiar to the young; wholesome and inevitable, like the measles.”

“What have I done,” said a charming voice close by, “that Captain Dalrymple will not even deign to look upon me?”

The charming voice proceeded from the still more charming lips of an exceedingly pretty brunette in a dress of light green silk, fastened here and there with bouquets of rosebuds.  Plump, rosy, black-haired, bright-eyed, bewilderingly coquettish, this lady might have been about thirty years of age, and seemed by no means unconscious of her powers of fascination.

“I implore a thousand pardons, Madame....” began my friend.

“Comment!  A thousand pardons for a single offence!” exclaimed the lady.  “What an unreasonable culprit!”

To which she added, quite audibly, though behind the temporary shelter of her fan:—­

“Who is this beau garcon whom you seem to have brought with you?”

I turned aside, affecting not to hear the question; but could not help listening, nevertheless.  Of Dalrymple’s reply, however, I caught but my own name.

“So much the better,” observed the lady.  “I delight in civilizing handsome boys.  Introduce him.”

Dalrymple tapped me on the arm.

“Madame de Marignan permits me to introduce you, mon ami,” said he.  “Mr. Basil Arbuthnot—­Madame de Marignan.”

I bowed profoundly—­all the more profoundly because I felt myself blushing to the eyes, and would not for the universe have been suspected of overhearing the preceding conversation; nor was my timidity alleviated when Dalrymple announced his intention of going in search of Madame de Courcelles, and of leaving me in the care of Madame de Marignan.

“Now, Damon, make the most of your opportunities,” whispered he, as he passed by. “Vogue la galere!”

Vogue la galere, indeed!  As if I had anything to do with the galere, except to sit down in it, the most helpless of galley-slaves, and blindly submit to the gyves and chains of Madame de Marignan, who, regarding me as the lawful captive of her bow and spear, carried me off at once to a vacant causeuse in a distant corner.

To send me in search of a footstool, to make me hold her fan, to overwhelm me with questions and bewilder me with a thousand coquetries, were the immediate proceedings of Madame de Marignan.  A consummate tactician, she succeeded, before a quarter of an hour had gone by, in putting me at my ease, and in drawing from me everything that I had to tell—­all my past; all my prospects for the future; the name and condition of my father; a description of Saxonholme, and the very date of my birth.  Then she criticized all the ladies in the room, which only drew my attention more admiringly upon herself; and she quizzed all the young men, whereby I felt indirectly flattered, without exactly knowing why; and she praised Dalrymple in terms for which I could have embraced her on the spot had she been ten times less pretty, and ten times less fascinating.