The gentleman addressed exerted his powers of compression, and Mr. Lacy edged by him. His course was towards the door, but he stopped as he espied Ida "Miss Ross, have you a welcome in your 'Retreat' for a storm-tossed wanderer? Your quiet nook is most inviting." Ida looked up mischievously. "I will not hinder your flight, Mr. Lacy. Your envy of my corner is wasted upon one who heard you singing a moment since, like the melancholy starling, 'I can't get out! I can't get out!'" "I plead guilty--but if a mightier temptation has mastered my desire for liberty? There are birds that will not fly after the cage door is unfastened." "They do not merit freedom," said she. "Be it so--this is my prison," rejoined the gentleman, seating himself upon an ottoman which Josephine, to get out of the way, had wedged behind the door, thinking as she did so, that it might prevent the pressure of the crowd from breaking the hinges, with not a presentiment that she was furnishing a hiding-place for the last one of all the world whom she would have concealed. "Now," continued he, "as I can see but one, I recognise but one jailor, and you will be merciful, remembering my voluntary incarceration. And as a starting-point to the conversation, why are you not in the other room?" "For the simple reason that no one has invited me to dance." He looked surprised, yet pleased at her frankness. "You would go, if you received an invitation?" "That would depend upon circumstances. I should assuredly decline one from you." "And why?" "I would not accept of anything offered in obedience to what the one who tendered it considered a hint. How I might act if I were a devotee of Terpsichore, I do not know, but a conversazione is more attractive to me than a ball." "We shall not quarrel there, and it is well that we agree in disagreeing with the general sentiment. Taught by the experience gained in our short acquaintance, I should prefer a petition with a quaking heart." "You need not apprehend a refusal, provided your demand is reasonable and properly timed," answered Ida. "Which of these provisoes was wanting to ensure the success of the suit you negatived, upon the evening of our introduction?" "Both," she returned, laughing. "You insisted that I should sing, at sight, a song already dear to you, and I declined to spoil the music, and wreck my musical reputation with a stranger, from whose mind I might never have an opportunity of removing the unfortunate opinion." "In contrariety to these considerations, were the wish to oblige me, and a dislike to wound the feelings of your friend, Miss Josephine, and this scale kicked the beam?" said Mr. Lacy, interrogatively. "No; Josephine was out of the question; she did not expect me to comply. We never sing together--or very rarely. My voice is not a contralto, nor does it accord with her's. You will have to be content with my explanation; I speak truth in the smallest matters."