“Then why scruple at my gift?”

Her brow clouded.  “But you said girls oughtn’t to take things from men they weren’t engaged to.  You remember that day on deck you got me to give back Andy’s scarf-pin?”

Percival cleared his throat.

“Quite a different matter,” he said; “now, between you and me—­”

Bobby shook her head as she took off the coat.

“No, I guess not.  I want it so bad I can taste it, but I think you’d better keep it for somebody in the family.”

Percival slipped the jade pendant into his waistcoat pocket, and tossed the coat on a chair.

“As you like,” he said.  “Shall we go to the ball-room?”

In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified.  Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her.  She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions.  Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.

The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another.  For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious.  He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amusement as evil.  He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.

“Mr. Hascombe, aren’t you going to ask me to dance?” It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.

“I don’t dance at public balls,” he said disapprovingly.

“Why not?” asked Bobby, in surprise.

“Hardly the thing.  A person in my position, you know—­”

“You mean because of the Honorable?  How stupid!  Let’s pretend you aren’t one just for to-night!”

“But I don’t dance these dances, you see.”

“That doesn’t matter; I’ll teach you.”

“Really, now, I can’t make a spectacle of myself.”

“Nobody wants you to.  We’ll practise out here in the loggia.  Come ahead!”

He was seized by two small, determined hands and drawn this way and that, apparently without the slightest method.

“But I haven’t the vaguest idea what to do with my feet,” he protested helplessly.

“Don’t do anything with them; let them do something with you.  Shut your eyes and listen to the music; let it get into your bones, and the first thing you know you will be doing it.”

With British solemnity Percival closed his eyes and tried to feel the music.  Suddenly he was aware that he was moving in rhythm to the insistent beat of the drum.

“That’s it!” cried Bobby, excitedly.  “You are doing the Grape-Vine; let yourself go.  That’s it!”

So intent was he upon keeping out of time instead of in it, that he was guided from the loggia into the ball-room before he knew it.  His awakening came when a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder.  He stopped indignantly.  The ship’s doctor had not only arrested the development of his new-found talent, but was actually dancing off with his partner!