"My dear," she said authoritatively, "what is it? Tell me." The girl told her. It was a simple story, and not altogether a novel one, but it contained the elements of tragedy for all that. This was her coming-out ball. She pointed to her discarded bouquet lying on the grimy floor. Her father had put it into her hand, and hung a little enamel pendant round her neck, and given her a kiss,--she told her story with all a child's fidelity to detail,--and had despatched her in her brother's charge, with admonitions not to break too many hearts, on the long fourteen-mile drive to Midfield,--a period occupied in ecstatic anticipations of the event to which she had been looking forward ever since she had put her hair up. Her brother, on their arrival, had booked one dance with her,--subsequently cancelled with many apologies on the ground that he had just met a girl whom he simply _must_ dance with,--and introduced her to two young men whose programmes were already full; after which he had plunged into the crowd, comfortably conscious that his duty had been done, leaving his sister to stand, smiling bravely, with tingling feet and her heart in her throat, from half-past nine until a quarter-past twelve. The music was pulsing in her ears, youth and laughter were swinging easily past her--even brushing her skirt; and she was utterly and absolutely alone. She was just eighteen; she was the prettiest girl (with the possible exception of Joan Gaymer) in the room; it was her first ball--and not a man had asked her to dance. A small matter, perhaps, compared with some, but men have blown out their brains for less. Long before she had sobbed out all her pitiful little narrative her head was on Joan's shoulder, and that mercurial young person, oblivious of everything save the fact that here was a sister in distress, was handling the situation as if she were twenty years her companion's senior instead of two. "I stood it for nearly three hours," said the girl apologetically, "and then I--I came here." "Well, my dear," said Joan with decision, "you aren't going to stay here any longer. You are coming straight back to the ballroom with me." "I can't," replied the girl,--"I couldn't _bear_ it!" "You are coming back to the ballroom with me," repeated Miss Gaymer firmly. "There are sixteen dances to go yet, and you are going to dance the soles of your slippers through, my child!" "You are awfully kind," said the girl wistfully, "but you won't be able to find me a partner now." "I can find you sixteen," said Joan. The child turned wondering eyes on her, and asked a question. "Me? Oh, I shall have a rest: I want one," replied Miss Gaymer, _splendide mendax_. "In fact, it will be a charity on your part to take them. They're all stupid, and they can't dance." But the girl shook her head. "You're a dear to suggest it," she said, "but it wouldn't do. Think how angry they would be, having booked a dance with Miss Gaymer, and only getting--"