Lucy Kemp was thoroughly enjoying herself. Had she cared to do so she could have danced every dance twice over--in fact, she would willingly have spared some of the attention she received from the young men of the neighbourhood, the sons of the local squires and clergy, who all liked her, and were glad to dance with her. Oliver seemed to have gone back to his old self. He and Lucy--though standing close to Mrs. Boringdon and an old lady with whom she had settled down for a long talk--were practically alone. Both felt as if they were meeting for the first time after a long accidental absence, and so had much to say to one another. Mrs. Rebell's name was not once mentioned,--why indeed should it have been? so Lucy asked herself when, later, during the days that followed, she went over every word of that long, intermittent conversation. Their talk was all about Oliver's own affairs--especially they discussed in all its bearings that important by-election which was surely coming on. Then something occurred which completed, and, as it were, rounded off Lucy's joy and contentment. James Berwick made his way across the vast room, now full of spinning couples, to the recess where they were both standing, and at once began talking earnestly to Oliver, tacitly including the girl by his side in the conversation. At the end of the eager, intimate discussion, he turned abruptly to Lucy and asked her to dance with him, and she, flushing with pleasure, perceived that Boringdon was greatly pleased and rather surprised by his friend's action. As for herself, she felt far more flattered than when the same civility--for so Lucy, in her humility, considered it--had been paid her earlier in the evening by the hero of the day, shy Lord Pendragon himself. That Berwick could not dance at all well made the compliment all the greater! * * * * * And Barbara Rebell? Barbara was not enjoying herself at all. It has become a truism to say that solitude in a crowd is the most trying of all ordeals. In one sense, Mrs. Rebell was not left a moment solitary, for both the Duke and the Duchess took especial pains to introduce her to those notabilities of the neighbourhood whom they knew Madame Sampiero was so eager, so pathetically anxious, that her god-daughter should know and impress favourably. But, as the evening went on, she felt more and more that she had no real link with these happy people about her. Even when listening, with moved heart, to old Mr. Daman's reminiscences of those far-off days at St. Germains, when his coming had meant a delightful holiday for the lonely little English girl to whom he was so kind, she felt curiously, nay horribly, alone.