“Try some of this nice lemon-ice, my love!” prescribed the plump matron.  “The acid will set you all straight.  No?  You don’t think you are going to have a chill, do you?  Father!” nudging her husband who was burying his spoon in a Charlotte Russe, “this dear child doesn’t want any dessert.  Won’t you pilot her through the crowd?”

“Only to the door, uncle!  Then come back to your dinner!” Rosa made answer to his disconcerted stare.  “I can find my way to my chamber without help.”

She could have done it, had she been in possession of her accustomed faculties.  But between the harrowing suspicion that engrossed her mind and the nervous moisture that gathered in her eyes with each step, she mounted a story too high, and did not perceive her blunder until, happening to think that her apartment must lie somewhere in the region she had gained, she consulted the numbers upon the adjacent doors, and saw that she had wandered a hundred rooms out of her way, She stopped short to consider which of the corridors, stretching in gas-lit vistas on either hand, would conduct her soonest to the desired haven, when a gentleman emerging from a chamber close by stepped directly upon her train.

CHAPTER XI.

In the rebound.

“I beg your pardon!” said a deep, familiar voice.  Then the formality vanished from face and address.  “Is this you?” holding out his hand in hearty friendliness that instantly dispelled Rosa’s forebodings.”  What or whom are you seeking in these wilds?”

The crystal beads glistened upon her lashes in the fulness and joy of her deliverance from doubt and fear, and before she could twinkle them back, broke into smaller brilliants upon her cheeks and the bosom of her dress.  It was very babyish and foolish, but it is to be questioned whether she could have contrived a more telling situation had she studied it for a month.

“What is it!” inquired Frederic, kindly, not releasing the fingers that twitched, more than struggled, in his.  “Have you been frightened?”

“Yes,” with grieved, but fearless simplicity, “I was frightened because I thought I had offended you—­perhaps driven you away—­and that I should never be able to ask your forgiveness for my cruel abruptness last night!  In thinking about and worrying over this, I somehow lost my way, and was just trying to remember by what route I reached this strange neighborhood, when your appearance startled me.”

“You did not know, then, that this is Bachelor’s Hall—­the haunt of unmated Benedicts, wifeless visitors to the city, and celibate M. C.’s?” he rejoined, pleasantly.  “Let me be your guide to more desirable as well as more accessible quarters!”

On the stairs he bent to scan her blushing countenance.