‘Generally, not always,’ admits Jimmy.

’The Racing Calendar, versus Tennyson, Longfellow, or Mrs Browning; but I don’t believe you’re half listening to me,’ says she, for he is gazing straight in front of him.

‘I assure you I was,’ he protests, ’I am in a crowd now, may I not muse on the “absent face that has fixed” me.’

‘No, certainly not, you ought to be thinking of me,’ this in a slightly aggrieved tone.

‘How do you know I wasn’t,’ gazing at her earnestly.

‘I’m not absent,’ and then Philippa seeing what might be implied, blushes a rosy red, and rising says, ’We must go back now, I promised Lord Helmdon this dance, and he’ll never find me here.  Ah! there he is.’

‘Are you so anxious to dance with him?’ asks Jimmy in a would-be indifferent tone.

‘Yes, of course,’ she replies, ‘I like him so much, don’t you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ replies Dalrymple with equal indifference.  And so the evening wears on and Miss Seaton is congratulating herself at having eluded Captain Harkness, when she suddenly finds him standing before her.

‘Won’t you give me a dance?’ he says in his suave tone.  ’I have been trying to speak to you all the evening—­’

‘Have you?’ she replies, and not knowing quite how to get out of it.  ‘You may have the next one if you like,’ she says.

‘May I really?  Then I shall find you somewhere about here?’

Lippa nods, and her partner, an aged baronet, claims her and they go through the intricacies of the lancers.  Almost before the next dance has begun, Harkness appears; he dances beautifully and knows it too, but it is not long before he suggests a saunter in the garden.

Philippa consents, and forth they go into the cool night air.  A hundred tiny lamps have been placed among the bushes, which shed a subdued light over the scene; charming corners have been arranged to sit in, while the splashing of the fountains mingles with the laughter and conversation of the company.

‘What an interminable dance,’ thinks Philippa, as having walked a good way round the garden, she finds herself once more outside the ball-room, and the same tune is still being played.  She heaves a sigh of despair and raising her eyes meets those of Dalrymple, who is propping himself against a pillar.  There is a look of reproach in them, and Lippa, though her conscience tells her she was unkind to him, feels an insane desire to make him jealous, and turns with an adorable smile to Harkness, not having heard a word of what he has just been saying; but he, thinking he has everything in his grasp, smiles, and leads her almost before she is aware, to a secluded corner.

‘I—­er I have been meaning to say something to you all this evening,’ he begins, standing before her with his arms folded.

‘Indeed,’ replies Miss Seaton lightly, ’it can’t be anything of great importance, or you would have said it before.’