Now and then he looked up, and saw Jael Dence.  She was alone.  Like him, she was excluded from that brilliant crowd.  He and she were born to work; these butterflies on the first floor, to enjoy.

Their eyes met; he saw soft pity in hers.  He cast a mute, but touching appeal.  She nodded, and withdrew from the window.  Then he knew the faithful girl would try and do something or other for him.

But he never moved from his pillar of torture.  Jealous agony is the one torment men can not fly from; it fascinates, it holds, it maddens.

Jael came to the drawing-room door just as the waltz ended, and tried to get to Miss Carden; but there were too many ladies and gentlemen, especially about the door.

At last she caught Grace’s eye, but only for a moment; and the young lady was in the very act of going out on the balcony for air, with her partner.

She did go out, accompanied by Mr. Coventry, and took two or three turns.  Her cheek was flushed, her eye kindled, and the poor jealous wretch over the way saw it, and ascribed all that to the company of his rival.

While she walked to and fro with fawn-like grace, conversing with Mr. Coventry, yet secretly wondering what that strange look Jael had given her could mean, Henry leaned, sick at heart, against the lamp-post over the way; and, at last, a groan forced its way out of him.

Faint as the sound was, Grace’s quick ear caught it, and she turned her head.  She saw him directly, and blushed high, and turned pale, all in a moment; for, in that single moment, her swift woman’s heart told her why he was so ghastly, and why that sigh of distress.

She stopped short in her walk, and began to quiver from head to foot.

But, after a few moments of alarm, distress, and perplexity, love and high spirit supplied the place of tact, and she did the best and most characteristic thing she could.  Just as Mr. Coventry, who had observed her shiver, was asking her if she found it too cold, she drew herself up to her full height, and, turning round, kissed her hand over the balcony to Henry Little with a sort of princely grandeur, and an ardor of recognition and esteem that set his heart leaping, and his pale cheek blushing, and made Coventry jealous in his turn.  Yes, one eloquent gesture did that in a moment.

But the brave girl was too sensitive to prolong such a situation:  the music recommenced at that moment, and she seized the opportunity, and retired to the room; she courtesied to Little at the window, and this time he had the sense to lift his hat to her.

The moment she entered the room Grace Carden slipped away from Mr. Coventry, and wound her way like a serpent through the crowd, and found Jael Dence at the door.  She caught her by the arm, and pinched her.  She was all trembling.  Jael drew her up the stairs a little way.

“You have seen him out there?”

“Yes; and I—­oh!”