“It was you, Mr. Corbin, that laughed, I think?” said Haward.  “To-morrow I shall send to know the reason of your mirth.  Mr. Everard, you will answer to me for that pretty oath.  Mr. Travis, there rests the lie that you uttered just now:  stoop and take it again.”  He flung his glove at Mr. Travis’s feet.

A great hubbub and exclamation arose.  Mr. Travis lifted the glove with the point of his rapier, and in a loud voice repeated the assertion which had given umbrage to Mr. Haward of Fair View.  That gentleman sprang unsteadily forward, and the blades of the two crossed in dead earnest.  A moment, and the men were forced apart; but by this time the whole room was in commotion.  The musicians craned their necks over the gallery rail, a woman screamed, and half a dozen gentlemen of years and authority started from the crowd of witnesses to the affair and made toward the centre of the room, with an eye to preventing further trouble.  Where much wine had been drunken and twenty rapiers were out, matters might go from bad to worse.

Another was before them.  A lady in rose color had risen from her chair and glided across the polished floor to the spot where trouble was brewing.  “Gentlemen, for shame!” she cried.  Her voice was bell-like in its clear sweetness, final in its grave rebuke and its recall to sense and decency.  She was Mistress Evelyn Byrd, who held sovereignty in Virginia, and at the sound of her voice, the command of her raised hand, the clamor suddenly ceased, and the angry group, parting, fell back as from the presence of its veritable queen.

Evelyn went up to Audrey and took her by the hand.  “I am not tired of dancing, as were those ladies who have left us,” she said, with a smile, and in a sweet and friendly voice.  “See, the gentlemen are waiting I Let us finish out this measure, you and me.”

At her gesture of command the lines that had so summarily broken re-formed.  Back into the old air swung the musicians; up went the swords, crossing overhead with a ringing sound, and beneath the long arch of protecting steel moved to the music the two women, the dark beauty and the fair, the princess and the herdgirl.  Evelyn led, and Audrey, following, knew that now indeed she was walking in a dream.

A very few moments, and the measure was finished.  A smile, a curtsy, a wave of Evelyn’s hand, and the dancers, disbanding, left the floor.  Mr. Corbin, Mr. Everard, and Mr. Travis, each had a word to say to Mr. Haward of Fair View, as they passed that gentleman.

Haward heard, and answered to the point; but when presently Evelyn said, “Let us go into the garden,” and he found himself moving with her and with Audrey through the buzzing, staring crowd toward the door of the Governor’s house, he thought that it was into Fair View garden they were about to descend.  And when they came out upon the broad, torchlit walk, and he saw gay parties of ladies and gentlemen straying here and there beneath the trees, he thought it strange that he had forgotten that he had guests this night.  As for the sound of the river below his terrace, he had never heard so loud a murmur.  It grew and filled the night, making thin and far away the voices of his guests.