The ball comes off. Vane constitutes himself the attendant cavalier of Reine. In a white lace dress with Marechal Neil roses on her breast and in her hair, she has never looked more brilliant and beautiful. There is a softened grace about her, a new light in her eyes that is wondrously winning. She is withal a perfect dancer, embodying the very poetry of motion. Some very pretty girls are present, some very nice men, but Reine is the belle of the ball. Mr. Charteris looks on in surprise. Reine had not been appreciated at Langton Villa. "You have not given me a single dance," he says to her late in the evening. "You have not asked me," she replies, in just the slightest tone of reproach, "and now I cannot; my card is full." She floats away with a partner who has just claimed her. Vane, leaning carelessly against a chair in the corner, watches her languidly. She seems to enjoy herself. Smiles hover on the crimson lips, the dark eyes flash beneath their curling lashes. Suddenly someone comes up to him--an acquaintance he has formed in London, and who has, somehow, found his way to this secluded spot. "Ah, Charteris, how-de-do," the new-comer says, unceremoniously. "Who is the dark-eyed beauty? I've been watching her this half hour." "Which one, Sir George?" with affected nonchalance. "By Jove! there is but one, you know, the divinity in white lace and yellow roses. I saw you speaking to her just now," returns Sir George Wilde, with a look of interest in his handsome brown eyes. "_That!_" says Mr. Charteris, "oh, that is--Miss Langton," with a curious hesitation over the name. "Friend of yours?" inquires the dashing young baronet. "Slight acquaintance," Charteris answers, warily. "A compatriot, I take it," pursues Sir George. Vane nods affirmatively. "You'll introduce me, then?" "With her permission," Vane responds, a trifle stiffly. "_That_, of course," laughs Sir George. A little later Vane goes to her to proffer his request. She stands for the moment alone in the embrasure of a window, her dark eyes turned from the giddy dancers out upon the mystic, lonely sea, with the moon and stars asleep upon its breast. He tells her, watching the bright face narrowly, that an English baronet has been so attracted by her beauty that he desires an introduction. Will she accord it? The laughing, dark eyes, a spice of mischief in their starry depths, glance up into his own. "A baronet!" she says, making a little round O of her rosy mouth. "Do you think, Mr. Charteris, I could really bear the burden of such an honor without being crushed by it?" "You can but try," he retorts, lightly. "England expects every man and every woman to do their duty." "Then I am ready for the sacrifice," she laughs, as lightly. He looks at her a moment in thoughtful silence. "Well?" she asks, interpreting a question in his look. "It is this, then, Reine: I am placed in an awkward position. How shall I introduce you--as Miss Langton, or as--as Mrs. Charteris?"