The voice is tenderly reassuring, and they float on again, but for a brief moment the lightness seems gone out of her feet. He draws a long, deep inspiration. Sweet, tender, and devoted as she is, it is not her time to love, and he remembers all the years between them. She is as innocent of the deeper depths of passion as Cecil. There is a long, long throb on the air, almost a wail of regret, from the human voices of the violins. The cornet seems to run off in the distance, and the horns have a sob in their last notes. The dancers stop with languid reluctance. Floyd Grandon leads his wife along as if he would take her down the steps, away somewhere. "Let us sit here," she cries, suddenly, and there is a curious strain in her voice, a thrill as of fear. Does she not dare trust herself with him anywhere, everywhere? "Are you tired?" he asks, with a tenderness that touches her. She still seems like one in a dream. "No," she answers. "It was enchanting. I could dance forever. I don't know----" Her voice falters and drops as the last notes of the music have done. It would be a mortal sin to awaken her. She shall dream on until the right time comes. "Then you liked it?" His voice has a steady, reassuring tone. "There is another; shall we try it again, presently?" This time it is the "Beautiful Blue Danube." "Oh, no, no!" she says, vehemently. The strains begin to float and throb again, light, airy, delicate, with one pathetic measure that always touches the soul. She rouses and listens, then the little hand creeps into his beseechingly. "Oh," she says, "may I take that back! I think I was beside myself. Will you waltz with me again?" It is an exquisite waltz, pure, dreamy pleasure, delicious to the last bar, and nothing has startled her. He watches her lovely flower-like face that is full of supreme content. "Now," he says, after she has rested awhile, "we must look after our guests. Let us take a stroll around." Nearly everybody has been waltzing. Marcia and her husband are present. It was quite against his desire that Floyd extended an invitation to Jasper Wilmarth, but he felt he could not do otherwise. He does not mean to be over-cordial with his brother-in-law in the matter of hospitalities. Wilmarth is proud of this victory, because he knows it cost Floyd Grandon something. He is glad, too, of an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with Mrs. Grandon. This does not altogether mean conversing with her, although he has managed several passing talks, but he likes to watch her, and the old thought comes into his mind that with a little better planning he might have won her. A half-suggestion of his had put the thought of Eugene Grandon in the mind of St. Vincent, but he well knew that Eugene would only laugh such a proposal to scorn. The factor he had not counted on was Floyd himself.