"Your generous acknowledgment of a fancied mistake at that time should have kept me from blunders this evening," she replied in a pained tone. With a steady glance that held her eyes he said very quietly, and almost gently: "You have made no blunder, Miss Romeyn. I do not ignore the past, nor do I wish it to be ignored with painstaking care. I am simply trying to face it and overcome it as I might an enemy. I may be wrong, for you know I have had little chance to become versed in the ways of good society; but it appears to me that it would be better even for those who are to spend but a social hour together that they should be free from the constraint which must exist when there is a constant effort to shun delicate or dangerous ground. Please finish the rondo; and also please remember that the ice is not thin here and there," he added with a smile. Laura caught her aunt's glance, and the significant lighting up of her face, and, with an answering smile, she said: "If you will permit me to change the figure, I will suggest that you have broken the ice so completely that I shall take you at your word, and play and sing just what you wish;" and, bent upon giving the young man all the pleasure she could, she exerted her powers to the utmost in widely varied selections; and while she saw that his technical knowledge was limited, it was clearly evident that he possessed a nature singularly responsive to musical thoughts and effects; indeed, she found a peculiar pleasure and incentive in glancing at his face from time to time, for she saw reflected there the varied characteristics of the melody. But once, as she looked up to see how he liked an old English ballad, she caught that which instantly brought the hot blood into her face. Haldane had forgotten himself, forgotten that she belonged to another, and, under the spell of the old love song, had dropped his mask. She saw his heart in his gaze of deep, intense affection more plainly than spoken words could have revealed it. He started slightly as he saw her conscious blush, turned pale instead of becoming red and embarrassed, and, save a slight compression of his lips, made no other movement. She sang the concluding verse of the ballad in a rather unsympathetic manner, and, after a light instrumental piece devoid of sentiment, rose from the piano.