“Oh, plenty.  But I rather bar set mania.  I’ve a catholic taste in human beings!”

“And I’ve an ultra fastidious one!” Look and tone gave her statement a delicately personal flavour.  “Besides, out here ... there are limits——­”

“And I must respect them, on penalty of your displeasure?” His tone was airily defiant.  “Well—­make me out a list of irreproachables, and I’ll work them off in rotation—­between whiles!”

The implication of that last subtly made amends:  and she had a taste for the minor subtleties of intercourse.

“I shall do nothing of the kind!  You’re perfectly graceless this evening!  I suspect all that scribbling goes to your head sometimes.  Sitting on Olympian heights, controlling destinies!  I suppose we earthworms down below all look pretty much alike?  To discriminate between mere partners—­is human.  To embrace them indiscriminately—­divine!”

Roy laughed.  “Oh, if it came to embracing——­”

“Even an Olympian might be a shade less catholic?” she queried with one of her looks, that stirred in Roy sensations far removed from Olympian.  Random talk did not flourish in Miss Arden’s company:  delicately, insistently she steered it back to the focal point of interest—­herself and the man of the moment.

From the circular drive they wandered on, unheeding; and when they re-entered the Hall a fresh dance had begun.  Under the arch they paused.  Miss Arden’s glance scanned the room and reverted to Roy.  The last ten minutes had appreciably advanced their intimacy.

“Shall we?” he asked, returning her look with interest.  “Is the luck in again?”

Her eyes assented.  He slipped an arm round her—­and once more they danced....

Roy had been Olympian indeed had he not perceived the delicate flattery implied in his apparent luck.  Lance had not given his message.  Yet two dances were available.  The inference was not without its insidious effect on a man temperamentally incapable of conceit.

The valse was nearly half over, when the least little drag on his arm so surprised him that he stopped almost opposite the main archway;—­and caught sight of Lance, evidently looking for some one.

“Oh—­there he is!” Miss Arden’s low tone was almost flurried—­for her.

“D’you want him?”

“Well—­I suppose he wants me.  This was his dance.”

“Good Lord!  What a mean shame,” Roy flashed out.  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?  Wouldn’t for the world....”

Her colour rose under his heated protest.  “I never hang about for unpunctual partners.  If they don’t turn up in time—­it’s their loss.”

Roy, intent on Lance, was scarcely listening.  “He’s seen us now.  Come along.  Let’s explain.”

It was Miss Arden who did the explaining in a manner all her own.

“Well—­what became of you?” she asked, smiling in response to Desmond’s look of interrogation.  “As you didn’t appear, I concluded you’d either forgotten or been caught in a rubber.”