“And a man there was and he made his prayer—­” he quoted to himself.  Well, thank God that it had not been answered.  He would take her away from here.  She could take her place in his family and reflect credit on his choice.  His family, his friends—­he winced at the thought of their possible reception of the news.  But Judith’s presence would adjust these difficulties.  He would present her to Kitty now, that his old friend might see what manner of woman she was.  Kitty, he felt, would be kind in memory of the old days.  She would give to them both in friendship what she had denied him in love.  And as he warmed to the thought he turned to the woman of his youth.  And she read a look in his face that had not been there in a long time.  Had he, then, come back to her?  Was the distance from bark to shore lessening as the sea of misunderstanding diminished?

“Kitty, we were speaking a moment ago of Miss Rodney.  You would like to know her, I’m sure.  We’ve been such good friends all these years while you were deciding that what I wanted was not good for us—­and deciding wisely, as I know now.  Look at her!  You’ll understand how she has helped me keep the balance of things.  When she’s finished dancing you’ll let me bring her to you, won’t you?”

And Kitty, who had expected much different words, struggled with the meaning of these unexpected ones.  The strangeness of the pain bewildered her.  Her dazed consciousness refused to accept that Peter was asking permission to present to her a woman whom she thought should not have been permitted to enter her presence.  There was about her a white flame of anger that seemed to lick up the red blood in her veins as she turned to answer: 

“She is undeniably handsome, Peter, but I do not care to meet your mistress.”

He bowed low to her as Lieutenant Swift, of Fort Washakie, who was of the Wetmore party, came to claim Kitty’s hand for the next dance.  Judith and Henderson were leading the last figure, their hands clasped high in an arch through which the dancers trooped in couples.  Again and again he tried to catch Judith’s eye, but her glance never once met his.  Her great, wide eyes had a far-away look as if they saw some tragedy, the shadow of which would never fall from her.  She was, indeed, the tragic muse in her floating white drapery, the tragic muse whose grief is too deep for tears.  He watched her as she swept towards him in the figure of the dance, the head thrown back, slightly foreshortened, the mouth smiling with the smile that knows all things, the eyes holy wells of truth.  He saw in her something of the tenderness of Eve, for all the blending of the calm modern woman, capable in affairs, equal to emergency.  It was like her to contrive her brother’s escape and then to dance with the very men who had knotted the noose for his hanging.  Henderson was bowing to her, the dance was over, and the next moment she was alone.