Impossible! Had he not sent her those most particular and private flowers that she wore, with meaning glances when he asked her of her dress and time? Had he not as good as told her, once before, when he had kissed her--Poor Mamie blushed with shame, while her heart pulsed quick with fear, and her eyes glistened with anger--Come, Charlie, come quick; and garner in your lovely conquest, ere it be too late!--But no Charlie comes through all that ball; and Mamie dances feverishly with anybody, and flirts aimlessly with Howland Starbuck, and is clever, witty, bright-eyed, radiant, irresistible--and then goes to Mrs. F----, the chaperone, with stories of a headache, and asking when she is going home. When John comes back to the little room with the ice, Mamie who sent him for it has gone, and Gracie Holyoke and Derwent too. So he sate him down, disconsolate, amid the bed of orchids, screened by quite a jungle of banana palms; so poor, so clumsy a pretence of happiness did all this seem to him! The strains of the shallow music came to him from the distant ball-room; it was the waltz-tune that was the rage that winter,-- “Oh, lo-ove for a week--(_tum, tum; rum, tim, tum!_) “A year, a day, (_tum tum; rum, tum, tum!_) “But alas for the lo-ove that bi-i-deth alway! (_tum, tum; rum, tim, tum!_)” John tried to deafen his ears to the music, which went on despite him, like the pettiness of life. He had had but one full look at Gracie Holyoke that night; and that had told him nothing. A stifling hot-house scent was in the little room, and John had started up to leave it when there was a rustling in the doorway and Kitty Farnum stood before him alone. She had been selected to take part in the spectacle of the evening, the much-envied fancy-dress minuet, after supper, that was to open the cotillon; and she wore the rich red brocades of a Louis Quinze court-dress, her dense hair powdered white, and from this mass of blazing color rose haughtily the regal neck and head, and the proud shoulders, and beneath the white masses of her hair her eyes burned deeply, like two violet stars. A sort of hush of admiration had attended her wherever she went that evening; and Haviland had heard men call her the beauty of the ball. Miss Farnum stood silent for a moment, playing with a scarlet orchid that was most conspicuous of all among them; a noble figure, the very picture of a duchess; and Haviland, who had risen at her entrance, facing her more humbly, and yet like a gentleman, too. “Mr. Haviland--my life must be settled to-night, one way or another: _I_ am weary of it. You once were kind enough to take some interest in me--am I right in supposing that I had a friend in you?” “Yes,” said John. There was an infinite respect and pity in his tone; he fancied that he knew what had happened. “Lord Birmingham has just asked me to become his wife. Am I right in thinking that you--do not wish to be my husband?”