“My dance, I believe, Miss Verity.”

The speaker, Mr. Alban Titherage—­well-groomed, rosy and self-complacent—­pulled down the fronts of his white waistcoat.  He inclined to distinct rotundity of person, and the garment in question, though admirable in cut, showed, what with the exertions of dancing, a damnable tendency, as he expressed it, to “ride up.”

“And my dance next afterwards, Miss Verity”—­this from Peregrine Ditton, his youthful, well-bred, if somewhat choleric, countenance presenting itself over the top of the stock-broker’s smooth and not conspicuously intelligent head.

Damaris looked from one to the other of these claimants for her favour, with instant and very becoming composure.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she told them collectively, “but surely there is some mistake.  Both those next dances—­they are the last, I’m afraid, too, aren’t they?—­belong to Colonel Carteret.”

“The deuce they do!” Ditton exploded, turning scarlet.  With a cocked eye and a jaunty movement of the head Mr. Titherage shot out his right shirt cuff, and pointed a stout forefinger at certain hieroglyphics inscribed on its glossy surface.

“Your name, Miss Verity, and written with an indelible pencil, to the permanent embellishment of my best party-going linen and witness to your infidelity.”

“I can only repeat I am dreadfully sorry,” Damaris said, with a becoming air of concern, “if the confusion has arisen through my fault.  But”—­

She appealed to Carteret.

“They always were your dances, weren’t they?”

“Without doubt,” he affirmed.

Amusedly and very kindly he smiled upon the angry boy and portly young man, although the beat of his pulse was accelerated and his throat felt queerly dry.

“I am sure you understand how impossible it is for me to release Miss Verity from her promise,” he said courteously.  “Would you willingly do so yourselves, were the positions reversed and either of you happy enough to stand in my shoes at this moment?”

Titherage gave a fat good-tempered laugh.

“By George, you have me there, Colonel.  Under such A1 circumstances catch me making way for a stranger!  Not if I know it.”

With which he attempted jovially to put his arm through that of his companion in misfortune and lead Ditton away.  But the latter flung off from him with a petulant, half-smothered oath; and, his back very straight, his walk very deliberate, pushed through the cheerfully discoursing throng into the ball-room.

Damaris turned about, resting her hands on the top of the iron balustrade again and gazed out to sea.  Her breath came with a catch in it.

“Colonel Sahib,” she said, proudly if just a trifle brokenly, “are you angry?”

“Angry?—­good Lord!”

Then recovering control of senses and of sense—­“But, dear witch,” he asked her—­“since when, if I may venture to enquire, have you become an adept in the fine art of—­well—­lying?”