Around and around we passed, borne on the limpid shining stream of the waltz music, as melancholy as it was joyous; music that was young; for youth is ever full of melancholy and wonder and mystery.  We danced.  Now and again I saw her little feet peep out.  I felt her weight rest light against my arm.  I caught the indescribable fragrance of her hair.  A gem in the gold comb now and then flashed out; and now and again I saw her eyes half raised, less often now, as though the music made her dream.  But yet I could have sworn I saw a dimple in her cheek through the mask, and a smile of mockery on her lips.

I have said that her gown was dark, black laces draping over a close fitted under bodice; and there was no relief to this somberness excepting that in the front of the bodice were many folds of lacy lawn, falling in many sheer pleats, edge to edge, gathered at the waist by a girdle confined by a simple buckle of gold.  Now as I danced, myself absorbed so fully that I sought little analysis of impressions so pleasing, I became conscious dimly of a faint outline of some figure in color, deep in these folds of lacy lawn, an evanescent spot or blur of red, which, to my imagination, assumed the outline of a veritable heart, as though indeed the girl’s heart quite shone through!  If this were a trick I could not say, but for a long time I resisted it.  Meantime, as chance offered in the dance—­to which she resigned herself utterly—­I went on with such foolish words as men employ.

“Ah, nonsense!” she flashed back at me at last.  “Discover something new.  If men but knew how utterly transparent they are!  I say that to-night we girls are but spirits, to be forgot to-morrow.  Do not teach us to forget before to-morrow comes.”

“I shall not forget,” I insisted.

“Then so much the worse.”

“I cannot.”

“But you must.”

“I will not.  I shall not allow—­”

“How obstinate a brute a man can be,” she remonstrated.

“If you are not nice I shall go at once.”

“I dreamed I saw a red heart,” said I.  “But that cannot have been, for I see you have no heart.”

“No,” she laughed.  “It was only a dream.”

“To-night, then, we only dream.”

She was silent at this.  “I knew you from the very first,” I reiterated.

“What, has Kitty talked?”

It was my turn to laugh.  “Ah, ha!” I said.  “I thought no names were to be mentioned!  At least, if Kitty has talked, I shall not betray her.  But I knew you directly, as the most beautiful girl in all the city.  Kitty said that much.”

“Oh, thank thee, kind sir!”

“Then you knew I was a Quaker?  Kitty has talked again?  I had forgotten it to-night, and indeed forgotten that Quakers do not dance.  I said I ought not to come here to-night, but now I see Fate said I must.  I would not have lived all my life otherwise.  To-night I hardly know who I am.”