Then he struck up definitely, and Mrs. Prockter’s party had resolved itself, as parties often do, into a dance.  In the blissful excitation caused by the ancient and jiggy tunes which “Jimmy” played, the sad episode of Helen Rathbone and Andrew Dean appeared to be forgotten.  Helen danced with every man except Andrew, and Andrew danced with every woman except Helen.  But Mrs. Prockter had not forgotten the episode; nor had the Misses Webber.  The reputation of Mrs. Prockter’s entertainments for utter correctness, and her own enormous reputation for fine tact, were impaired, and Mrs. Prockter was determined that that which ought to happen should happen.

She had a brief and exceedingly banal interview with Helen, and another with Andrew.  And an interval having elapsed, Andrew was observed to approach Helen and ask her for a polka.  Helen punctiliously accepted.  And he led her out.  The outraged gods of social decorum were appeased, and the reputations of Mrs. Prockter and her parties stood as high as ever.  It was well and diplomatically done.

Nevertheless, the unforeseen came to pass.  For at the end of the polka Helen fainted on the grass; and not Andrew but Emanuel was first to succour her.  It was a highly disconcerting climax.  Of course, Helen, being Helen, recovered with singular rapidity.  But that did not lighten the mystery.

In the cab, going home, she wept.  James could scarcely have believed it of her.

“Oh, uncle,” she half whispered, in a voice of grief, “you fiddled while Rome was burning!”

This obscure saying baffled him, the more so that he had been playing a concertina and not a fiddle at all.  His feelings were vague, and in some respects contradictory; but he was convinced that Mrs. Prockter’s scheme for separating Helen and the Apollo Emanuel was not precisely succeeding.

CHAPTER XV

THE GIFT

After that night great-stepuncle James became more than a celebrity—­he became a notoriety in Bursley.  Had it not been for the personal influence of Mrs. Prockter with the editor of the Signal, James’s exploits upon the concertina under weeping willows at midnight would have received facetious comment in the weekly column of gossip that appears in the great daily organ of the Five Towns on Saturdays.  James, aided by nothing but a glass or two of champagne, had suddenly stepped into the forefront of the town’s life.  He was a card.  He rather liked being a card.

But within his own heart the triumph and glory of James Ollerenshaw were less splendid than outside it.  Helen, apparently ashamed of having wept into his waistcoat, kept him off with a kind of a rod of stiff politeness.  He could not get near her, and for at least two reasons he was anxious to get near her.  He wanted to have that frank, confidential talk with her about the general imbecility of her adorer, Emanuel Prockter—­that talk which he had