Mrs. McBride, with her all-seeing eye, perceived the turn events had taken.  She was full of enjoyment herself; she had quite—­almost quite—­decided to listen to the addresses of Captain Fitzgerald, therefore her heart, not her common-sense, was uppermost this night.

It could not hurt Theodora to have one evening of agreeable conversation, and it would do Herryman Hoggenwater a great deal of good to be obstacled; thus she expressed it to herself.  That last success with Princess Waldersheim had turned his empty head.  So she called him and planted him in a safe place by an American girl, who would know how to keep him, and then turned to her own affairs again.

The Prince was a man of the world, and understood life.  So Theodora and Lord Bracondale were left in peace.

The latter soon moved his chair to a position where he could see her face, rather behind her still, which entailed a slightly leaning over attitude.  They were beyond the radius of the lights in the bosquet.

Lord Bracondale was perfectly conversant with all moves in the game; he knew how to talk to a woman so that she alone could feel the strength of his devotion, while his demeanor to the world seemed the least compromising.

Theodora had not spoken for a moment after his first speech.  It made her heart beat too fast.

“I have been watching you all through dinner,” he continued, with only a little pause.  “You look immensely beautiful to-night, and those two told you so, I suppose.”

“Perhaps they did!” she said.  This was her first gentle essay at fencing.  She would try to be as the rest were, gay and full of badinage.

“And you liked it?” with resentment.

“Of course I did; you see, I never have heard any of these nice things much.  Josiah has always been too ill to go out, and when I was a girl I never saw any people who knew how to say them.”

She had turned to look at him as she said this, and his eyes spoke a number of things to her.  They were passionate, and resentful, and jealous, and full of something disturbing.  Thrills ran through poor Theodora.

His eyes had been capable of looking most of these things before to other women, when he had not meant any of them, but she did not know that.

“Well,” he said, “they had better not return or recommence their compliments, because I am not in the mood to be polite to them to-night.”

“What is your mood?” asked Theodora, and then felt a little frightened at her own daring.

“My mood is one of unrest—­I would like to be away alone with you, where we could talk in peace,” and he leaned over her so that his lips were fairly close to her ear.  “These people jar upon me.  I would like to be sitting in the garden at Amalfi, or in a gondola in Venice, and I want to talk about all your beautiful thoughts.  You are a new white flower for me, as different as an angel from the other women in the world.”