“What a clearance,” said Bluebell, subsiding, with a fagged air, on to a sofa, as her partner bowed himself off with an eye to business.

“Forward the heavy brigade,” said Bertie, motioning to his brother-in-law bearing off Lady Hampshire; “only room for thirty at a time. We must wait, Miss Leigh.”

“I am ready to wait.  But what have ‘we’ got to say to it?” said Bluebell, with her Canadian directness.

“Don’t speak so unkindly,” said Bertie, sentimentally, flinging himself on the sofa by her side.  “You don’t know all I have suffered this week.”

“You certainly disguised it very well,” said the girl, with total disbelief in her eyes.

“Do you think I felt nothing when I saw you all day with Vavasour, who every one knows is madly in love with you; and then dancing every dance—­not leaving a corner in your programme for me?”

“You didn’t ask me,” said Bluebell, less austerely.

“No, for you never so much as looked my way.  Besides, Bluebell, I told you we must be careful.  If Colonel Rolleston guessed my feelings for you—­he is so selfish, he forgets he has been young himself—­I should be no longer welcome here.”

“Then, I am sure,” said Bluebell, the tears rushing to her eyes, “I wish you had never come.  I have been miserable ever since I took that stupid walk, which you prevented my mentioning; and—­and—­”

“Let’s be miserable again next Sunday, Bluebell,” whispered Bertie.

“I shall not go home; or, if I do, I’ll stop there.  I’ll never walk with you again, Captain Du Meresq.”

“‘Quoth the raven, “never more!"’ I know what it is, you are tired to death.  Sit still on the sofa and I will bring you some supper; sleighing all day and dancing all night have distorted your mental vision,”—­and Bertie dashed off, passing the young lady he was engaged to on his way to the supper room, with an inward conviction that their dance must be about due.  Having possessed himself of a modicum of prairie hen, he intercepted a tumbler of champagne cup just being handed across the table to Captain Delamere.

“Confound it, that’s mine!” said the aggrieved individual.

“I want it for a lady,” urged Bertie.

“So do I,” said Delamere.

“My dear fellow,” said Bertie, chaffingly, nodding towards a gorgeous American, “it is for Mrs. Commissioner Duloe.  She must not be kept waiting.”

“I won’t allow my lady to be second to any lady in the room,” cried Delamere who was elevated.

Bertie was in too great a hurry to chaff Delamere any longer, for, perceiving that his relatives were safely at supper, he resolved to make the most of the few minutes at his disposal, and, as he would have expressed it, “lay it on thick.”

Bluebell was leaning languidly back on the sofa, watching the forms of the dancers, ever revolving past the open door to the strains of a heart-broken valse. (En passant, why are the prettiest valses all plaintive and despairing, quadrilles and lancers cheerful and jiggy, and galops reckless, not to say tipsy?)