"No--no," he said, "you take it altogether too hard. You exaggerate, dear witch, to the point of extravagance. You have been less constantly with your father than usual--you're the delight of his life after all, as you must very well know--and inevitably he has missed you. Nothing worse than that. The damage, such as it is, can easily be repaired." "Ah! but the damage, as you call it, starts behind all that in something else--something older, much deeper down, of which I doubt whether any lasting reparation is possible. I did try to repair it. All my going out with Henrietta, and this rushing about lately, began in that trying--truly it did, Colonel Sahib. And then I suppose I got above myself--as poor Nannie used to say--and came to care for the rushing about just for its own sake"-- "My dance, I believe, Miss Verity." The speaker, Mr. Alban Titherage--well-groomed, rosy and self-complacent--pulled down the fronts of his white waistcoat. He inclined to distinct rotundity of person, and the garment in question, though admirable in cut, showed, what with the exertions of dancing, a damnable tendency, as he expressed it, to "ride up." "And my dance next afterwards, Miss Verity"--this from Peregrine Ditton, his youthful, well-bred, if somewhat choleric, countenance presenting itself over the top of the stock-broker's smooth and not conspicuously intelligent head. Damaris looked from one to the other of these claimants for her favour, with instant and very becoming composure. "I'm dreadfully sorry," she told them collectively, "but surely there is some mistake. Both those next dances--they are the last, I'm afraid, too, aren't they?--belong to Colonel Carteret." "The deuce they do!" Ditton exploded, turning scarlet. With a cocked eye and a jaunty movement of the head Mr. Titherage shot out his right shirt cuff, and pointed a stout forefinger at certain hieroglyphics inscribed on its glossy surface. "Your name, Miss Verity, and written with an indelible pencil, to the permanent embellishment of my best party-going linen and witness to your infidelity." "I can only repeat I am dreadfully sorry," Damaris said, with a becoming air of concern, "if the confusion has arisen through my fault. But"-- She appealed to Carteret. "They always were your dances, weren't they?" "Without doubt," he affirmed. Amusedly and very kindly he smiled upon the angry boy and portly young man, although the beat of his pulse was accelerated and his throat felt queerly dry. "I am sure you understand how impossible it is for me to release Miss Verity from her promise," he said courteously. "Would you willingly do so yourselves, were the positions reversed and either of you happy enough to stand in my shoes at this moment?" Titherage gave a fat good-tempered laugh. "By George, you have me there, Colonel. Under such A1 circumstances catch me making way for a stranger! Not if I know it."