"You are very angry with me," said Clotilde suddenly; and for a moment he caught her eye, and asked himself directly after whether Marie had seen that glance, which she had, and suffered a raging pang. "Angry? No," said Glen lightly, "why should I be angry, Mrs Elbraham? Surely a lady has a right to make her own choice. I was a competitor; and an unfortunate one." "Do you think you were unfortunate?" asked Clotilde eagerly. "As unfortunate as you were favoured; why, my dear Mrs Elbraham, you are here the mistress of a palace. Had I had my way, you would have been condemned to share some shabby barrack-lodging. Hence I congratulate you." "Ah!" Glen's face flushed more and more. It might have been from the long-drawn, half-despairing sigh on his left; or the champagne, of which he pretty freely partook in his excitement, might have been answerable for his heightened colour, but certainly he did not go the way to diminish it, for he drained the glass at his side again and again, dashing off into a hurried conversation and talking brightly and well, till he heard a fresh sigh upon his left, and encountered another glance from his hostess's large dark eyes--a look full of reproach and appeal. This time Glen smiled. The wine was working, and he saw matters from another point of view. Throwing off, then, the consciousness that had troubled him, he laughed and chatted with her till his words or the wine brought a warm flush into her creamy skin, and again and again he received a languishing look from the large dark eyes--a look that would have made some men turn giddy, but which only made Glen smile. The party at last arose and began to file back into the brilliantly-lit saloons, the band having now been stationed in the flower-filled hall, and an improvised dance commenced, a couple beginning to turn to the strains of one of Gungl's waltzes, and a dozen more following suit, agitating the perfumed air, and filling it with the scintillations of jewels. They passed from the great marquee into the hall, the strains of the waltz making Glen long to go to Marie and ask her to be his partner for that dance. He was thinking this when he was brought back to himself by the low, sweet voice of Clotilde. "You are _distrait_," she said half reproachfully. "Yes. I was thinking of the music," he said. "I want a waltz." "No, no," she said hurriedly; and she pressed his arm. "I must not dance to-night. Take me in this way." She pointed to a door and they passed through into the great conservatory, softly lit up by tinted globes placed amidst the flowers and foliage of the rich exotics that filled the place. There was a delicious calm there, and the air was fragrant with the cloying scents of flowers; musical with the tinkle of falling water as a jet flashed in many-tinted drops and sparkled back into a fern-hung basin; while as if from a distance came the softened strains of the voluptuous waltz.