John stood with Mamie in the first or outer room, wishing to be with her, yet knowing not exactly what to say. He could not feed this young butterfly on thought; and yet she was too bright for commonplaces; and then, he knew her yet so slightly! And indeed she had not fluttered through a season yet; and butterflies take knowing best in autumn. So Mamie thought him dull; and, all the time, that was in his mind which had made her start to hear. John’s interest was but vicarious, yet, through Gracie’s--and he was well assured that Charlie would not come. But we old fellows of a dozen winters, who talk to girls at their first ball--what chance have our stale cynicisms with the pretty ear by our side, when its pretty eyes companions are looking for that young fellow with the incipient mustache, who means shortly to tell her (when our Heaviness has only left her)--that she is the only person in all his long life long that he has really ever loved. Throwing over at once his nurse and his governess, as we may, with our caustic wit, remark; and we go to Mrs. Gower; she will not repulse us; she will understand us, and make our seasoned hearts beat fast again. So, after John has danced once with Mamie, she happens to feel tired before a certain dark corner; and there Lionel Derwent is standing alone, torturing his tawny mustache. He has to speak to her; and then it happens that these two drop aside from the whirling circle--and Haviland is left alone upon its brink. He watches it for a minute, as Dante did Francesca’s. It is a smaller circle; it is not “mute of any light,” nor does Minos stand there “_orribilmente_,” and grin--unless fat old Tony Duval may do duty for the same, with his unctuous swarthy face, like some head-waiter on the boulevard--but how much “_più dolor_”--or less _dolor_--it girdles than the outer world, is John then wondering. And there he saw “_Semiramìs, di cui si legge--_” many things, no doubt, and triumphant young Mrs. De Witt, Anadyomene; and Lady X., and the Countess of Z., and “_Cleopatràs lussuriosa_” and Mrs. Flossie Gower; “_Elena vidi--e ’l grande Achille--Paris, Tristano, e più di mille--_” and borne before, most light in all the waltz, Miss Farnum with Van Kull. She caught his eye one moment, as she floated by, and his own fell. But Derwent gave Miss Livingstone his arm, and went--or suffered himself to be led by her--to a place of fragrant flowers and broad shadowy leaves. It was quite what Mamie had imagined; and yet she blushed to feel how pale she was, and then felt all the color leave again as her heart beat; and then blushed again to feel it beat so near his strong arm. The poets have told you how a maiden’s color comes and goes--now you understand the process, quite in the modern manner.