"Dance?" said a _Sporting Times_, rushing up in turn, and shooting out the one word like a pea from a pop-gun. "Thanks, I should like to, but I am not allowed," said Di. "My grandmother is very particular. If you had been the _Sunday at Home_ I should have been charmed." The "Pink 'un" expostulated vehemently, and said he would have come as the _Church Times_ if he had only known; but Di remained firm. John walked away, pricking himself with his little dagger, the sheath of which had somehow got lost, and watched the knot of men who gradually gathered round Di. Presently she moved away with Lord Frederick in the direction of Madeleine, who had installed herself at the further end of the room among the _fenders_, as our latter-day youth gracefully designates the tiaras of the chaperones. John was seized upon and introduced to an elderly minister with an order, who told him he had known his father, and began to sound him as to his political views. John, who was inured to this form of address, answered somewhat vaguely, for at that moment Di began to dance. She had a partner worthy of her in the shape of a sedate young Russian, resplendent in the white-and-gold uniform of the imperial _Gardes à cheval_. Lord Frederick gravitated back to John. No young man among the former's large acquaintance was given the benefit of his experience more liberally than John. Lord Frederick took an interest in him which was neither returned nor repelled. "Elver is down at last," he said. "It seems he had to wait till his mother's maid could be spared to sew him into his clothes. It is a pity you are not dancing, John. You might dance with your cousin. She and Prince Blazinski made a splendid couple. What a crowd of moths round that candle! I hope you are not one of them. It is not the candle that gets singed. Another set of arrivals. Look at Carruthers coming in with a bouquet. Cox of the _Monarch_ still, I suppose. He can't dance with it; no, he has given it to his father to hold. Supper at last. I must go and take some one in."