But as for the girl herself—­what was she?  A beauty stepping out of a portrait by one of the masters?  She wore her grandmother’s ball gown of rose-coloured brocade, and her hair was arranged in the fashion that went with it, small curls escaping from the knot at the back of her head, a style which set off her radiant face with peculiarly piquant effect.  Her cheeks matched her frock, and her eyes—­what were her eyes?  Black stars, or wells of darkness into which a man might fall and drown himself?

She seemed to draw to herself, as she danced, among the soberer colours of her elders and the white frocks of the country cousins, all the light in the room.  “I would look at something else if I could,” thought Richard to himself, “but it would be only a blur to me after looking at her.”

When Roberta returned Uncle Rufus’s bow it was with a posturing such as Richard had seen only in plays; it struck him now that the graceful droop of her whole figure to the floor was the most perfect thing he had ever seen; and when her head came up and he saw her laughing face lift again to meet her partner’s, he considered the boyish old gentleman who took her hand and led her on in the intricate figures of the dance a person to be envied.

“Aren’t Rob and Uncle Rufus the greatest couple you ever laid eyes on?” exulted Louis Gray, coming up to greet him.  “The next is going to be a waltz.  Will you ask Mrs. Stephen?  We’ll let you begin easily, but shall expect you to end by dancing with Aunt Ruth, Uncle Rufus’s wife—­which will be no hardship when you really know her, I assure you.  We indulge in no ultra-modern dances on Christmas Eve, you see, and have no dance-cards; it’s always part of the fun to watch the scramble for partners when the number is announced.”

So presently Richard found himself upon the floor with little Mrs. Stephen Gray, waltzing with her according to his own discretion, though all around them were dancers whose steps ranged from present-day methods to the ancient fashion of turning round and round without ever a reverse.  He saw Roberta herself revolving in slow circles in an endless spiral, piloted by the proud arm of Mr. Philip Gray.  She nodded at him past her uncle’s shoulder, and he wondered seriously if she meant to dance with elderly uncles all the evening.

Before he could approach her she was off in the next dance with a young cousin, a lad of seventeen.  Richard himself took out one of the country cousins to whom Mrs. Stephen had presented him, a very pretty, fair-haired girl in white muslin and blue ribbons; and he did his best to give her a good time.  He found her pleasant company, as Mrs. Stephen had prophesied, and at another time—­any time—­before he came into the attic room to-night, he might have found no little enjoyment in her bright society.  But in his present condition his one hope and endeavour was to get the queen of the revels, the rose of the garden, into his possession.