‘And then I suppose she’ll paint, as the others do, don’t you know,’ drawled her partner; ‘carmine her lips, and all that sort of thing.’ The lady looked at him suspiciously out of the corner of a carefully darkened eyelid. ‘Let us hope she won’t sink quite so low as that,’ she said with dignity. There was no doubt as to Daphne’s triumph. Before she had been an hour in the room, she was the acknowledged belle of the ball. People went out of their way to look at her. She walked once round the rooms on her father’s arm, and in that slow and languid progress held, as it were, her first court. It was her first public appearance; her father’s friends clustered round him, eager to be presented to the _débutante_. Stately dowagers begged that she might be made known to them. All the best people in the room knew Sir Vernon, and all professed a friendly desire to know his younger daughter. Her card was full before she knew what she was doing. ‘Our little Daphne is a success!’ said Gerald to his betrothed, as they glided round the room in a languorous troistemps. ‘All the Apollos are running after her.’ ‘I am so glad. Dear child! It is such a pleasure to see her happy,’ answered Madoline softly. ‘I hope her head won’t be turned by all this adulation. It is such a poor little puff-ball of a head. I sometimes fancy she has thistledown inside it instead of brains.’ ‘Indeed, dear, she has plenty of sense and serious feeling,’ remonstrated Madoline, wounded by this allegation. ‘But she is painfully sensitive. She needs very tender treatment.’ ‘Poor butterfly!’ ‘Do you like her dress?’ ‘It is simply perfect. Your taste, of course.’ ‘Yes; she let me have my own way in the matter.’ ‘And as a reward she is looking her loveliest. It is not the calm beauty of a princess, like my Lina’s; but for a spoiled-child kind of prettiness, capricious, mutinous, variable, there could be nothing better.’ Later he was at Daphne’s side, as she sat in a corner by her aunt, with half-a-dozen young men hovering near, Edgar nearest of all, holding her fan. ‘I suppose you have saved at least one dance for me, Empress,’ he said, taking her programme from her hand. ‘I don’t know. All sorts of people have been writing down their names.’ ‘All sorts of people,’ echoed Gerald, examining the card. ‘You will be a little more respectful about your partners in your seventh or eighth season. Why, here, under various hieroglyphics, are the very topmost strawberries in the social basket—masters of fox-hounds, eldest sons of every degree, majors and colonels—and not one little waltz left for me! I claim you for the first extra.’ ‘I—I’m rather afraid I’m engaged for the extras.’ ‘No matter. You were solemnly engaged to me for one particular waltz when first this ball was spoken of at South Hill. You don’t remember, perhaps; but I do. I claim my bond. I will be a very Shylock in the exaction of my due.’