’I should like to very much, but I don’t think I could ask mother to come with me; she is so very busy just now.’

’Well, don’t ask your mother to come; you won’t be afraid to come alone?’

‘I am afraid I could not do that.’

‘Why not?  No one will ever know anything about it.’

’Very possibly, but I don’t think it would be a proper thing to do—­I don’t think it would be a right thing to do.’

‘Right!  I thought we had ceased to believe in heaven and hell.’

’Yes; but does that change anything?  There are surely duties that we owe to our people, to our families.  The present ordering of things may be unjust, but, as long as it exists, had we not better live in accordance with it?’

‘A very sensible answer, and I suppose you are right.’

Alice looked at him in astonishment, but she was shaken too intensely in all her feelings to see that he was perfectly sincere, that his answer was that of a man who saw and felt through his intelligence, and not his conscience.

The conversation had come to a pause, and the silence was broken suddenly by whispered words, and the abundant laughter that was seemingly used to hide the emotions that oppressed the speakers.  Finally they sat down quite close to, but hidden from, Alice and Harding by a screen, and through the paper even their breathing was audible.  All the dancers were gone; there was scarcely a white skirt or black coat in the pale blueness of the room.  Evidently the lovers thought they were well out of reach of eavesdroppers.  Alice felt this, but before she could rise to go Fred Scully had said—­

’Now, May, I hope you won’t refuse to let me come and see you in your room to-night.  It would be too cruel if you did.  I’ll steal along the passage; no one will hear, no one will ever know, and I’ll be so very good.  I promise you I will.’

‘Oh, Fred, I’m afraid I can’t trust you; it would be so very wicked.’

’Nothing is wicked when we really love; besides, I only want to talk to you.’

‘You can talk to me here.’

’Yes, but it isn’t the same thing; anyone can talk to you here.  I want to show you a little poem I cut out of a newspaper to-day for you.  I’ll steal along the passage—­no one will ever know.’

’You’ll promise to be very good, and you won’t stop more than five minutes.’

The words were spoken in low, soft tones, exquisitely expressive of the overthrow of reason and the merging of all the senses in the sweet abandonment of passion.

Alice sat unable to move, till at last, awakening with a pained look in her grey eyes, she touched Harding’s hand with hers, and, laying her finger on her lips, she arose.  Their footfalls made no sound on the deep, soft carpet.

‘This is very terrible,’ she murmured, half to herself.

Harding had too much tact to answer; and, taking advantage of the appearance of Violet Scully, who came walking gaily down the room on the Marquis’s arm, he said: