"Now the nights are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings." "Why, so it is! Our _own_ Dicky, in the flesh and an admirable temper apparently," says Mr. Beauclerk. "Shall we come and interview him?" They move forward and presently find themselves at Mr. Browne's elbow; he is, however, so far lost in his kindly ridicule of the poor silly revolving atoms before him, that it is not until Miss Kavanagh gives his arm a highly suggestive pinch that he learns that she is beside him. "_Wough!_" says he, shouting out this unclassic if highly expressive word without the slightest regard for decency. "_What_ fingers you've got! I really think you might reserve that kind of thing for Mr. Dysart. _He'd_ like it." This is a most infelicitous speech, and Miss Kavanagh might have resented it, but for the strange fact that Beauclerk, on hearing it, laughs heartily. Well, if _he_ doesn't mind, it can't matter, but how silly Dicky can be! Mr. Beauclerk continues to laugh with much enjoyment. "Try him!" says he to Miss Kavanagh, with the liveliest encouragement in his tone. If it occurs to her that, perhaps, lovers, as a rule, do not advise their sweethearts to play fast and loose with other men, she refuses to give heed to the warning. He is not like other men. He is not basely jealous. He knows her. He trusts her. He had hinted to her but just now, so very, very kindly that _she_ was suspicious, that she must try to conquer that fault--if it is hers. And it is. There can be no doubt of that. She had even distrusted _him_! "Is that your advice?" asks Mr. Browne, regarding him with a rather piercing eye. "Capital, _under the circumstances_, but rather, eh?----Has it ever occurred to you that Dysart is capable of a good deal of feeling?" "So few things occur to me, I'm ashamed to say," says Beauclerk, genially. "I take the present moment. It is all-sufficing, so far as I'm concerned. Well; and so you tell me Dysart has feeling?" "Yes; I shouldn't advise Miss Kavanagh to play pranks with him," says Dicky, with a pretentiously rueful glance at the arm she has just pinched so very delicately. "You're a poor soldier!" says she, with a little scornful uptilting of her chin. "You wrong Mr. Dysart if you think he would feel so slight an injury. What! A mere touch from _me_!" "Your touch is deadlier than you know, perhaps," says Mr. Browne, lightly. "What a slander!" says Miss Kavanagh, who, in spite of herself, is growing a little conscious. "Yes; isn't it?" says Beauclerk, to whom she has appealed. "As for me----" He breaks off suddenly and fastens his gaze severely on the other side of the room. "By Jove! I had forgotten! There is my partner for this dance looking daggers at me. Dear Miss Kavanagh, you will excuse me, won't you? Shall I take you to your chaperone, or will you let Browne have the remainder of this waltz?"