"I knew we should meet some time," he said. "It was written... But I never pictured it like this. I have imagined you in an unconventional setting with the veld for a background... illimitable space--a selfish picture--with only you--and me..." "And we meet in the heart of a crowd," she said, and smiled. She liked the imaginative picture that he drew. "Things are always different in life," he replied, "from what we would have. But I'll not quarrel with the occasion; we will make the most of it. Will you let me see your card?" She handed it to him. "It is almost empty," she explained. "We have only just arrived." "That," he replied gravely, "is fortunate for me. I claim every waltz you have left." "Oh no?" she returned quickly. "I couldn't allow that." "Then every other one," he said; and duly initialled the dances and returned her her programme. The quiet mastery of his manner, the assumption that what pleased him would be equally agreeable to her, robbed her of the power to protest. She was glad and yet discomfited at the number of dances he had claimed; and she scribbled subsequent partners' names on the card herself, not choosing that others should see those frequently recurring initials. She was also a little apprehensive of what her mother would think if she noticed, as she could scarcely fail to do, how often she danced with the same man. But she would not have forgone one of those dances whatever the penalty. Lawless had acted on an impulse in initialling her programme as he had done--a recurrence, even though slight, of the old midsummer madness. She attracted him. She was not exactly pretty, but there was the charm of youth in her favour, and an inexplicable something about her that piqued his curiosity. Also the very obvious fact that she took a romantic interest in him because of an old wound considerably amused him. It was so distinctly feminine. How shall a world in which the mothers of the nations love nothing better than the clash of arms enjoy universal peace? He recognised that the scar was the fundamental attraction. But for it she would probably never have noticed him; because of it she singled him out from among his fellows, and through it he lived daily in her memory, figuring as greater than the race generally--a modern Achilles with the vulnerable spot in the face. The thing became an obsession. Lawless was conscious even while he danced with her of the fascination the scar held for her; her eyes seldom strayed from it, and between the dances, when he led her to the more secluded places for sitting out, she leant back in her seat and watched it with undiminished interest, while he fanned her and cynically wondered what she would make of the tale if he told her the history of the scar...