With a hurried apology to her own partner and Noreen’s she dragged the girl off in search of the fresh man who had taken her fancy, and did not give up the chase until, with Melville’s aid, Dermot was run to earth in the cardroom and introduced to her.  Ida did not wait for him to ask her to dance but calmly ran her pencil through three names on the programme and bestowed the vacancies thus created on him in such a way that he could not refuse them.  Dermot, however, did not grumble.  She was Noreen’s friend; if not the rose, she was near the rose.

Ida was not the only one who noticed how frequently the girl had danced with him.  Charlesworth, disappointed at finding vacancies on her programme, for which he had hoped, already filled, commented on it and asked who the stranger was in a supercilious tone that made her furious and gained for him a well-merited snubbing.

Indifferent to criticism, kind or otherwise, Noreen gave herself up for the evening to the happiness of Dermot’s presence, trying to trick herself into the belief that he was still only a dear friend to whom she owed an immense debt of gratitude for saving her life and her honour.  Never had a ball seemed so enjoyable—­not even her first.  Never had she had a partner who suited her so well.  Certainly he danced to perfection, but she knew that if he had been the worst dancer in the room she still would have preferred him to all others.  And never had she hated the ending of an entertainment so much.  But Dermot walked beside her dandy to the gate of her hotel, calmly displacing Charlesworth, much to the fury of the Rifleman, who had begun to consider this his prerogative.

Ida and she sat up for hours in her room discussing the ball and all its happenings, but the older woman’s most constant topic was Dermot.  It was a subject of which Noreen felt that she could never weary; and she drew her friend on to talk of him, if the conversation threatened to stray to anything less interesting.  The girl was used to Ida’s sudden fancies for men, for the married woman was both susceptible and fickle, and Noreen judged that this sudden predilection for Dermot would die as quickly as a hundred others before it.  But this time she was wrong.

The Major was not to remain many days in Darjeeling, but Noreen hoped that he would give her much of his spare time while there.  She was disappointed, however, to find that although he was frequently in her and Ida’s company at the Amusement Club or elsewhere, he made no effort to compete with Charlesworth or Melville or any other man who sought to monopolise her, but drew back and allowed him to have a clear field while he himself seemed content to talk to Mrs. Smith.  At first she was hurt.  He was her friend, not Ida’s.  But he never sought to be alone with her, never asked her to ride with him, or do anything that would take her away from the others.

Then she grew piqued.  If he did not value her society he should see that others did, and she suddenly grew more gracious to Charlesworth, who seemed to sense in Dermot a more dangerous rival than was Melville or any of the others and began to be more openly devoted and to put more meaning into his intentions.