And Morris had always grown restive when Miss Rose Wood made one of her "dead sets" at Andy's face and fortune; for a far-away experience of his own, in that quarter, had taught him how small an objection to that maiden would be a fortune with the man whom she blessed with her affection. "And _that_ brand of the wine of the heart," he had once cautioned Andy, "does not improve with age." Doubtful of that young gentleman's confident response, that "_he_ was not to be caught with chaff," Van still kept watch and ward. So, leaving the elegant book-room of the elegant avenue mansion--converted, for the nonce, into an elegant bar-room for Mr. Trotter Upton and his friends--Morris sauntered through knots of pretty women and of pretty vacuous-looking men, resting on seats half-hidden in potted plants, and approached the pair interesting him most. Neither glowed with delight at his advent, although Andy seemed only to be rattling off common-places, in peculiarly voluble style. Morris asked for the next waltz; Miss Wood glanced shyly up at her companion, dropped her eyes demurely, and believed she would rest until the _cotillon_. Then, after a few more small necessaries of social life about the beauty of the girls, the heat of the rooms, and the elegance of the flowers, she permitted Andy to drift easily towards the door that opened on the dim-lit coolness of the conservatory. As they turned away, Rose Wood sent one sharp glance of her gray eyes glinting into Morris's; then hers fell, and even he could find only bare common-place in her words: "So many little dangers, you know, Mr. Morris--at a ball. One cannot be _too_ prudent." He did not answer; but the look that followed her graceful figure had very little of flattery in it. "Curse that _Chambertin_!" he muttered in his moustache. "I warned him against the second pint at dinner. Andy _couldn't_ be fool enough, though," he added, with a shrug, and moved slowly towards the dancing-room. The critical group, still around the big punch-bowl, looked after him curiously. "_He's_ not soft on the old girl, is he?" queried Mr. de Silva Street. "Never!" chuckled Mr. Wetherly Gage. "Morris is too well up in Bible lore to marry his grandmother!" "And he don't have to," put in Mr. Trotter Upton, with a sage wink. "I'd back Van against the field to win the Allmand purse, hands down, if he'd only enter. But he _won't_; so you're safe, Silvey, if you've got the go in you. But Lord! Van's too smart to carry weight for age! Why, you may land me over the tail-board, if the woman that hitches _him_ double won't have to throw him down and sit on him, Rarey fashion!" And the speaker, remarking _sotto voce_, that here was luck to the winner, drained his glass with a smack, set it down, and lounged into the smoking-room. There he lazily lit one of Mr. Allmand's full-flavored Havanas, and thoughtfully stored his breast pocket with several more. III.