She had been half through an unimportant remark to Mr. Blake, but she stops short now and forgets to finish it. Her color comes and goes. The sides are now prancing through _their_ performance, and she and her partner are standing still. Perhaps--_perhaps_ she was mistaken; with all these swaying idiots on every side of her she might well have mixed up one man's partner with another; and Miss Dunscombe (she had caught a glimpse of her awhile ago) was surely in that set on the right hand side. She stoops forward, regardless--_oblivious_--of her partner's surprised glance, who has just been making a very witty remark, and being a rather smart young man, accustomed to be listened to, is rather taken aback by her open indifference. A little more forward she leans; yes, _now_--the couples part--for one moment the coast lies clear. She can see distinctly. Miss Dunscombe is indeed dancing in that set but _not_ as Mr. Beauclerk's partner. Miss Maliphant has secured that enviable _role_. Even as Joyce gazes, Beauclerk, turning his head, meets her earnest regard. He returns it with a beaming smile. Miss Maliphant, whose duty it is at this instant to advance and retire and receive without the support of a chaperone the attacks of the bold, bad man opposite, having moved out of Beauclerk's sight, the latter, with an expressive glance directed at Joyce, lifts his shoulders forlornly, and gives a serio-comic shrug of his shoulders. All to show now bored a being he is at finding himself thus the partner of the ugly heiress! It is all done in a second. An inimitable bit of acting--but unpleasant. Joyce draws herself up. Her eyes fall away from his; unless the distance is too far, the touch of disdain that lies in them should have disconcerted even Mr. Beauclerk. Perhaps it has! "Our turn?" says she, giving her partner a sudden beautiful glance full of fire--of life--of something that he fails to understand, but does _not_ fail to consider charming. She smiles; she grows radiant. She is a different being from a moment ago. How could he--Blake--have thought her stupid. How she takes up every word--and throws new meaning into it--and _what_ a laugh she has! Low-sweet--merry--music to its core! Beauclerk in his turn finds a loop-hole through which to look at her, and is conscious of a faint feeling of chagrin. She oughtn't to have taken it like that. To be a little pensive--a little sad--that would have shewn a right spirit. Well--the night is long. He can play his game here and there. There is plenty of time in which to regain lost ground with one--to gain fresh ground with the other. Joyce will forgive him--when she hears _his_ version of it. CHAPTER XII. "If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?--Or is thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"