With thrill of marvelling and rapture, with chill of self-abasement.  When, years ago, he saw Irene in the dress of ceremony, she seemed to him peerlessly radiant; but it was the beauty and the dignity of one still girlish.  What he now beheld was the exquisite fulfilment of that bright promise.  He had not erred in worship; she who had ever been to him the light of life, the beacon of his passionate soul, shone before him supreme among women.  What head so noble in its unconscious royalty!  What form so faultless in its mould and bearing!  He heard her speak—­the graceful nothings of introduction and recognition; it was Irene’s voice toned to a fuller music.  Then her face dazzled, grew distant; he turned away to command himself.

Mrs. Borisoff spoke beside him.

“Have you no good-evening for me?”

“So this is what you meant?”

“You have a way of speaking in riddles.”

“And you—­a way of acting divinely.  Tell me,” his voice sank, and his words were hurried.  “May I go up to her as any acquaintance would?  May I presume that she knows me?”

“You mean Miss Derwent?  But—­why not?  I don’t understand you.”

“No—­I forget—­it seems to you absurd.  Of course—­she wrote and introduced me to you——­”

“You are amusing—­which is more than can be said of everyone.”

She bent her head and turned to speak with someone else.  Piers, with what courage he knew not, stepped across the carpet to where Miss Derwent was sitting.  She saw his approach, and held her hand to him as if they had met only the other day.  That her complexion was a little warmer than its wont, Piers had no power of perceiving; he saw only her eyes, soft-shining as they rose to his, in their depths an infinite gentleness.

“How glad lam that you got my letter just before leaving Petersburg!”

“How kind of you to introduce me to Mrs. Borisoff!”

“I thought you would soon be friends.”

It was all they could say.  At this moment, the host murmured his request that Otway would take down Mrs. Borisoff; the hostess led up someone to be introduced to Miss Derwent.  Then the procession began.

Piers was both disappointed and relieved.  To have felt the touch upon his arm of Irene’s hand would have been a delight unutterable, yet to desire it was presumption.  He was not worthy of that companionship; it would have been unjust to Irene to oblige her to sit by him through the dinner, with the inevitable thoughts rising in her mind.  Better to see her from a distance—­though it was hard when she smiled at the distinguished and clever-looking man who talked, talked.  It cost him, at first, no small effort to pay becoming attention to Mrs. Borisoff; the lady on his other hand, a brilliant beauty, moved him to a feeling almost hostile—­he knew not why.  But as the dinner progressed, as the kindly vintage circled in his blood, he felt the stirrings of a deep joy.  By his own effort he had won reception into Irene’s world.  It was something; it was much—­remembering all that had gone before.