“Then everybody is an ass!” said Peter violently, turning upon her.  “But it doesn’t matter to Helena.”

The girl flushed in surprise and anger.

“I didn’t know you were such great friends.  I only repeat what I hear,” she said stiffly.

“It depends on where you hear it,” said Peter.  “There isn’t a man in this ball that isn’t pining to dance with her.”

“Has she given you a dance?” said the girl, with a touch of malice in her voice.

“Oh, I’ve come off as well as other people!” said Peter evasively.

Then, of a sudden, his chubby face lit up.  For Helena, just as the music was slackening to the close of the dance, and a crowd of aspirants for supper dances were converging on the spot where she stood, had turned and beckoned to Peter.

“Do you mind?—­I’ll come back!” he said to his partner, and rushed off.

“Second supper dance!” “All right!”

He returned radiant, and in his recovered good humour proceeded to make himself delightful even to Miss Chance, whom, five minutes before, he had detested.

But when he had returned her to her mother, Peter wandered off alone.  He did not want to dance with anybody, to talk to anybody.  He wanted just to remember Helena’s smile, her eager—­“I’ve kept it for you, Peter, all the evening!”—­and to hug the thought of his coming joy.  Oh, he hadn’t a dog’s chance, he knew, but as long as she was not actually married to somebody else, he was not going to give up hope.

In a shrubbery walk, where a rising moon was just beginning to chequer the path with light and shade, he ran into Julian Horne, who was strolling tranquilly up and down, book in hand.

“Hullo, what are you doing here?” said the invaded one.

“Getting cool.  And you?”

Julian showed his book—­The Coming Revolution, a Bolshevist pamphlet, then enjoying great vogue in manufacturing England.

“What are you reading such rot for?” said Peter, wondering.

“It gives a piquancy to this kind of thing!” was Horne’s smiling reply, as they reached an open space in the walk, and he waved his hand towards the charming scene before them, the house with its lights, on its rising ground above the lake, the dancing groups on the lawn, the illuminated rose-garden; and below, the lake, under its screen of wood, with boats on the smooth water, touched every now and then by the creeping fingers of the searchlight from the boathouse, so that one group after another of young men and maidens stood out in a white glare against the darkness of the trees.

“It will last our time,” said Peter recklessly.  “Have you seen Buntingford?”

“A little while ago, he was sitting out with Lady Cynthia.  But when he passed me just now, he told me he was going down to look after the lake and the boats—­in case of accidents.  There is a current at one end apparently, and a weir; and the keeper who understands all about it is in a Canada regiment on the Rhine.”