“Go, Leam,” urged her father.

“It is silly, and I shall fall,” repeated Leam.

Nevertheless, she put her hand in Edgar’s, and he took her on his arm in triumph.

At first her steps were slow and timid; but as her feet grew more accustomed to the unusual ground, as she gained more confidence in the strong arm that held her like a bar of iron, as her youth began to assert itself in the physical pleasure of the fresh air and the gliding movement, she lost her shyness and timidity, and she found herself almost laughing—­she, who never laughed and only so rarely smiled.

“You like it?” he asked, looking down on her with a man’s admiration for a pretty woman marked in every line and feature.

“Yes, so much!” she answered, her usual reserved, self-centred manner for the moment lost.

“Now you will know how to trust me in future,” he said not very loudly.

She looked up to him, carrying her eyes right into his.  “Yes, I will,” she answered simply.

At this moment Alick joined them, and Leam suddenly lost her new-found joy.

“I am glad you have come on at last,” said her faithful dog, effacing himself and his disappointment with an effort.

“They made me,” Leam replied.

“I hope not against your will and not to your displeasure,” said Edgar, still looking down into her face with the man’s admiration of a woman’s beauty so strongly marked in his own.

“No,” she answered:  “I have liked it.”

“Let us take her between us, major, and give her a good spin,” said Alick, grasping the upper part of her arm uncomfortably.

Edgar slightly pressed the hand he held crosswise.  “Would you like to double your protectors?” he asked.  “Shall I share my office?”

“No,” said Leam.  “I like best to be with one person only.”

“And possession being the nine points, let us go on,” laughed Edgar, whirling her away.  “By the by, would you have preferred my giving you to Mr. Corfield as ’the one person only’?” he asked with affected doubt, making pretence of wishing to know her mind.  He was skating rapidly now.  It was as good as flying to Leam, and she was happy and very grateful.

“I would rather be with you,” she answered.

“Thanks!” said Edgar, and smiled.

“He is awkward, and you are not,” continued Leam, anxious to explain.  “But I like him very much.  He is good and kind; and he cannot help being awkward, can he?”

“No,” said Edgar coldly.  “So you like him very much, do you?”

“Very much,” repeated Leam with loyal emphasis, “He has always been my friend here.”

“I hope for the future that I may be included in that sacred place,” said Edgar after a pause.

Leam looked at him slowly, fixedly.  “You will never be so good to me as he is,” she answered.

It was the man’s heart that beat now, the man’s cheek that flushed.  Who could keep his pulses still when those eyes were turned to his with, as it seemed, such maddening meaning?  “I will try,” he said; and from that moment the die was cast.  Edgar put himself in competition with Alick:  he lowered his pride to such a rivalry as this, and threw his whole energies into the determination to surpass and supplant a man for whom even the least personable of his own sex need have had no fear.