Presentiments, though commonly deceptive, do nevertheless exist. Just at this time I had a presentiment that some crisis was impending. If I could secure a few minutes' privacy with the young Countess, I was resolved to tell her a secret which already burned within me, though I myself had not known it until this very evening. But I felt conviction, I felt confidence, and I felt that there was no time like the present. Events the most insignificant upset purposes the most momentous. There were two doors to the hall, and in order to reach the one at which we were aiming it was necessary to cross the floor. As we stepped on the floor at one side a couple of gentlemen appeared on the other; we met in the very centre of the hall, but it was not until I felt the Countess press my arm that I thought to notice who either of the gentlemen was. To my ineffable annoyance I then recognised the infatuated Jeff leaning on the arm of the bulky gentleman with the moustachios, who was positively in the act of introducing him to my partner. The Countess seemed as much taken by surprise as myself. She returned Jeff's elaborate obeisance with a grand curtsey, and then stood erect and silent, her hand still resting within my arm. The music struck up another waltz. 'May I have the honour of this dance?' inquired Jeff with his sweetest emphasis. I waited to hear the Countess say she was engaged and to pass on with her; but after an instant's pause she slowly relinquished my arm, and uttering the conventional words, 'Je veux bien,' she resigned herself to the triumphant Bostonian. Then, when it was too late, I realised that our engagement had been for the previous dance, and not for this one, if indeed there had been any definite engagement at all, and that, as I had heard Jeff's request in silence, the Countess had been forced to suppose that I desired we should part. It was one of those absurd misapprehensions which occur in ball-rooms as well as in other places, but which I had never found so vexatious as in the present instance. Meantime Jeff and she had eddied away from me; another couple, revolving up from behind, came into collision with me. I felt myself in a false position, and beat a retreat to the Countess Semaroff, beside whom I seated myself with the gloomy grin of a baffled man.