I looked, at first indifferently, and then with searching scrutiny.  I saw a small, slender girl, clad in white, with a mass of gold hair twisted loosely up from her neck, and fastened with a single star of diamonds.  A superb garniture of natural lilies of the valley was fastened on this girl’s shoulder; and, falling loosely across her breast, lost itself in the trailing folds of her gown.  She held a palm-leaf fan entirely covered with lilies of the valley, and a girdle of the same flowers encircled her waist.  Her face was serious, but contented; her eyes were bright, but with an intense and thoughtful lustre; and her cheeks were softly coloured, as though a west wind had blown freshly against them.  There was nothing either attractive or repulsive about her that I could see; and yet—­ I turned away from the mirror hastily with a faint smile.

“The lilies form the best part of my toilette,” I said.

“That they do,” asserted Amy, with emphasis.  “They are the finest specimens I ever saw.  It was real elegant of Mr. Cellini to send them all fixed up ready like that, fan and all.  You must be a favourite of his!”

“Come, let us proceed,” I answered, with some abruptness.  “We are losing time.”

In a few seconds more we entered the ballroom, and were met at once by Madame Didier, who, resplendent in black lace and diamonds, gave us hearty greeting.  She stared at me with unaffected amazement.

“Mon dieu!” she exclaimed—­her conversation with us was always a mixture of French and broken English—­“I should not ’ave know zis young lady again!  She ’ave si bonne mine.  You veel dance, sans doute?”

We readily assented, and the usual assortment of dancing-men of all ages and sizes was brought forward for our inspection; while the Colonel, being introduced to a beaming English girl of some seventeen summers, whirled her at once into the merry maze of dancers, who were spinning easily round to the lively melody of one of Strauss’s most fascinating waltzes.  Presently I also found myself circling the room with an amiable young German, who ambled round with a certain amount of cleverness, considering that he was evidently ignorant of the actual waltz step; and I caught a glimpse now and then of Amy’s rubies as they flashed past me in the dance—­ she was footing it merrily with a handsome Austrian Hussar.  The room was pleasantly full—­not too crowded for the movements of the dancers; and the whole scene was exceedingly pretty and animated.  I had no lack of partners, and I was surprised to find myself so keenly alive to enjoyment, and so completely free from my usual preoccupied condition of nervous misery I looked everywhere for Raffaello Cellini, but he was not to be seen.  The lilies that I wore, which he had sent me, seemed quite unaffected by the heat and glare of the gaslight—­not a leaf drooped, not a petal withered; and their remarkable whiteness and fragrance elicited many admiring remarks from