Zai’s card is soon full--so full that only one waltz remains, which she guards pertinaciously. She is determined to valse it with Carl, even if the heavens fall. Several ask for it, but she laughingly says she is keeping it for a friend. That friend does not, however, seem in any haste to take advantage of her generosity. She has been nearly an hour in the room before she even sees him, and then he is talking earnestly to Miss Crystal Meredyth, and only acknowledges _her_ by a formal bow; and to add to this, Crystal Meredyth makes a very lovely Ondine to-night. How strange it seems to her that he should bow like this, when only a week or two before he looked at her with all his soul in his eyes, at the Bagatelle Theatre! Zai’s heart is full to bursting, and her red lips quiver a little; but while a weeping and gnashing of teeth is carried on inwardly, she returns his bow with one still more frigid. And at this inopportune moment, Lord Delaval comes up to her. “I think the next dance is mine?” he says, rather stiffly, offering his arm. “You mistake,” Zai answers. She does not wish to go off with one man when she can stand here, the centre of a group of _jeunesse dorée_--all begging for “one turn,” and this within earshot of Carl. She would give anything to pique him now that he is so engrossed with this girl who has money. “The next dance is Mr. Bayne’s; at least his name is on my card,” she goes on. Lord Delaval bows--not a bow like the one Carlton Conway has given her just now, but a bow on the Grandison model. His taste and tact are perfect; nothing would induce him to dispute a point of this kind; but a look steals over his handsome face which is not common to it when Zai is its object--a look of cold hauteur, a look that has even a _soupçon_ of dislike in it. “I understood the dance was mine,” he says, and quietly turning on his heel, he walks away. There are visible surprise and satisfaction among the butterfly youths at this little rebuff to the best match in Town--for lords of the creation, noble animals though they be, are yet creatures of weak mould. But Zai’s conscience smites her. That the dance is Lord Delaval’s she knew quite well when she allowed Percy Bayne to write his name over his. At the moment she felt a sort of perverse defiance of displeasure on the part of any man. But now she regrets having sullied her lips by a white lie, and she feels ashamed--as one always feels ashamed--when one has taken shabby advantage of the immunity which is chivalrously permitted a woman to do or say uncivil things by Society. It is a retributive justice perhaps, which accords her nothing for her incivility, for Carlton Conway, who is standing not far off, and alone--Miss Meredyth having gone off to dance--presently moves off too, without even a glance in her direction. It is really too much!