Perhaps some of those who happened to be experienced in such complications may have divined which way the wind blew, for no one offered to sit out the promised dances, and Isola and Lostwithiel were left pretty much to themselves among the palms and orange-trees in the ante-room. They were not unobserved, however; and among the eyes which marked them with no friendly notice were the fine, steel-blue eyes of Miss Crowther. “Is that a flirtation?” she asked Captain Morshead, glancing in the direction of the ante-room where those two were sitting, as she and Isola’s cast-off partner waltzed past the muslin-draped doorway. “They seem rather fond of talking to each other, don’t they? Who was she? She’s uncommonly pretty.” “Oh, her people were army, I believe--as poor as church mice--buried alive in Dinan.” “At Dinan--and now she lives at Trelasco, she tells me. It seems scarcely worth while to have exhumed her in order to bury her again. Such a girl as that ought to be in London enjoying life.” “Oh, but she’s a grass widow, don’t you know. Her husband is in Burmah. I don’t think it’s quite nice in her to be here to-night; only as my too good-natured mother sent her a ticket, I suppose I oughtn’t to say anything about it. Perhaps if mother sees the way she goes on with Lord Lostwithiel she’ll rather regret that ticket.” * * * * * What was Lostwithiel saying all this time in that gentle baritone, which was heard only by one listener? He was asking forgiveness for his indiscretion of the afternoon, and in that prayer for pardon was repeating his offence. Isola was less inclined to be angry, perhaps, now. The magic of the dance was still upon her senses, the dance which had brought them nearer than all the days they had met; than all their long confidential conversations on the heights above the harbour, or on the river path, or dawdling on the bridge. She had felt the beating of his heart against her own, breath mingling with breath, the thrilling touch of his encircling arm; and it was as if he had woven a spell around her which made her his. She had never danced with her husband, who had no love of that heathenish art. In all their brisk, frank courtship there had been no intoxicating hours. She hardly knew what dancing meant till she waltzed with Lostwithiel, who had something of the fiery ardour of a Pagan worshipping his gods in wild gyrations upon moonlit mountain or in secret cave. She let him talk to her to-night--let him pour out the full confession of his unhappy love. He spoke not as one who had hope; not with that implied belief in her frailty which would have startled her into prompt resistance. His accents were the accents of despair, his love was a dark fatality. ἉΝΑΓΚΗ “Why did you write that word?” she asked.