"Some day will you come up and see it?" asks he, with more earnestness than he acknowledges even to himself; "and," with a happy thought, "bring the children. It will be a nice walk for them." "But you are always in London, are you not?" says Georgie. "Oh, no, not always: I sha'n't go there again, for ever so long. So promise, will you?" "I'll ask Mrs. Redmond. But I know we can. She never refuses me anything," says this most unorthodox governess. "I'm sure I'm not surprised at that," says Branscombe. "Who could?" "Aunt Elizabeth could," says Miss Broughton. "I haven't the misfortune to know your aunt Elizabeth, for which I am devoutly grateful, because if she 'could,' as you say, she must be too good for hanging. By the by, this is not _my_ first ball; yet you have never taken the trouble to ask me (though I asked you) why I intend keeping this night as a white spot in my memory." "Well, I ask you now," says Georgie, penitently. "Do you care to know?" "I do, indeed." "Then it is because to-night I met you for the first time." He bends his head a little, and looks into her eyes,--the beautiful eyes that smile back so calmly into his, and are so cold to him, and yet so full of fire,--eyes that somehow have power to charm him as no others have yet been able to. He is strangely anxious to know how his words will be received, and is proportionately aggrieved in that she takes them as a matter of course. "After all, my reason is better than yours," she says, in her sweet, petulant voice. "Come, let us dance: we are only wasting time." Branscombe is at first surprised, then puzzled, then fascinated. Almost any other woman of his acquaintance would have accepted his remark as a challenge,--would have smiled, or doubted, or answered him with some speech that would have been a leading question. But with this girl all is different. She takes his words literally, and, while believing them, shows herself utterly careless of the belief. Dorian, passing his arm round her waist, leads her out into the room, and again they waltz, in silence,--he having nothing to say to her, she being so filled with joy at the bare motion that she cares no more for converse. At last, "Like some tired bee that flags Mid roses over-blown," she grows languid in his arms, and stops before a door that leads into a conservatory. It has been exquisitely fitted up for the occasion, and is one glowing mass of green and white and crimson sweetness. It is cool and faintly lit. A little sad fountain, somewhere in the distance, is mourning sweetly, plaintively,--perhaps for some lost nymph. "You will give me another dance?" says Branscombe, taking her card. "If I have one. Isn't it funny?--I feared when coming I should not get a dance at all, because, of course, I knew nobody; yet I have had more partners than I want, and am enjoying myself so much."