Her eyes answered him.  Was he not irresistible?  “Oh,” she whispered, “I thought—­I thought you had forgotten.”

He glanced round, as if to make sure that they were alone, and then swiftly bent and kissed her quivering lips.  “But the past has no claims,” he said.  “Remember, it is a game without consequences!”

She laughed very happily, clasping his hand.  “I was afraid it was all over,” she said.  “But it isn’t, is it?”

He laughed too under his breath.  “I am under the very strictest orders not to excite you,” he said, passing the question by.  “If the doctor were to come and feel your pulse now, there would be serious trouble.  And I shouldn’t be allowed within a dozen yards of you again for many a long day.”

“What nonsense!” murmured Dinah.  “Why, you have done me so much good that I feel almost well.”  She squeezed his hand with all the strength she could muster.  “Don’t go away till I’m quite well!” she begged him wistfully.  “We must have—­one more dance.”

His eyes kindled suddenly with that fire which she dared not meet.  “I will grant you that,” he said, “on condition that you promise—­mind, you promise—­not to run away afterwards.”

His intensity embarrassed her, she knew not wherefore.  “Why—­why should I run away?” she faltered.

“You ran away last time,” he said.

“Oh, that was only—­only because I was afraid the Colonel might be angry with me,” she murmured.

“Oh well, there is no Colonel to be angry now,” he said.  “It’s a promise then, is it?”

But for some reason wholly undefined she hesitated.  She felt as if she could not bring herself thus to cut off her own line of retreat.  “No, I don’t think I can quite promise that,” she said, after a moment.

“You won’t?” he said.

His tone warned her to reconsider her decision.  “I—­I’ll tell you to-morrow,” she said hastily.

“I may be gone by to-morrow,” he said.

She looked up at him with swift daring.  “Oh no, you won’t,” she said, with conviction.  “Or if you are, you’ll come back.”

“How do you know that?” he demanded, frowning upon her while his eyes still gleamed with that lambent fire that made her half afraid.

She dropped her own.  “There’s someone coming,” she whispered.  “It doesn’t matter, does it?  I do know.  Good-bye!”

She slipped her hand from his with a little secret sense of triumph; for though he had so arrogantly asserted himself she was conscious of a certain power over him which gave her confidence.  She was firmly convinced in that moment that he would not go.

He rose to leave her as Isabel came softly into the room, and between the brother and sister there flashed a look that was curiously like the crossing of blades.

Isabel came straight to Dinah’s side.  “You must settle down now, dear child,” she said, in that low, musical voice of hers that Dinah loved.  “It is getting late, and you didn’t sleep well last night.”