An hour or so later she was sitting between dances talking to a young man whom she had met that evening, when, looking across the room, she saw Val Tracy walk over and take a seat beside Miss Imogene. For some time Dorothea lost all idea of what her polite attendant was saying and he, doing his best to entertain this attractive young lady, grew more and more convinced that girls from England were cold and unresponsive, if not stupid. Miss Imogene, with a bright untroubled smile, looked up at Val as he joined her. “Are you coming to take pity upon a poor wall flower?” she asked in her gentlest and most appealing manner. “I am most lucky to find you alone,” he answered gallantly. “It is unheard of for so lovely a lady not to be surrounded by a bevy of partners.” “Sit down and stop blarneying,” she ordered, patting a chair beside her. “I have been wondering where you were, and after all your vows of constancy how can I be expected to enjoy myself when you desert me?” She laughed lightly. These two always amused themselves, and others, with their extravagant expressions of devotion. “Where have you been?” she added. “Searching after mysteries,” he answered, with a bantering air. “I begin to think there are Red Strings about.” He laughed as he spoke and looked away across the room to where Dorothea sat, while Miss Imogene said to herself that he _did_ know what was afoot. “Do you believe in that silly tale?” she questioned. “I, for one, think it is just one of those stories that people make up for excitement’s sake. You might think I was a Red String because I wear a red velvet band about my neck.” “Perhaps I do,” he answered promptly, turning to her with a quick glance. Miss Imogene threw back her head and gave a gay laugh. “You are so funny, Val,” she chuckled. “Why not suspect April because she had a red belt on the other day? Or little Miss Dorothea across the way there, or the fiddler with his red necktie? If it is cause for suspicion to wear red, ah, then every brunette in the South will be suspected. And, my dear boy, they won’t give up their most becoming color because of this tale of Red Strings.” “Faith ’tis the red in their cheeks that makes fools of us men,” Tracy answered half seriously, his eyes again wandering across the room. “But what’s the good of thinking of fair maids these days? There’s a Yankee bullet waiting for me now, for all I know. Molded and ready and—” “Tut, tut, such a way for a brave soldier to talk,” Miss Imogene interrupted. “Would you have me crying before all these people?” “There will be few tears for me when I catch that bullet,” Tracy replied; but he laughed, and the momentary seriousness, so unusual with him, disappeared. “Faith, Miss Imogene, there’s a deal of nonsense in all this talk of brave soldiers. I was quaking in my shoes not ten minutes ago, fearing I might cross an enemy and him ready to fight for it.”