Falloden was quite aware of the situation. But it suited him to dance with Mrs. Glendower, and to dance with her a great deal. He and Constance exchanged greetings; he went through the form of asking her to dance, knowing very well that she would refuse him; and then, for the rest of the evening, when he was not dancing with Mrs. Glendower, he was standing about, “giving himself airs,” as Alice repeated to her mother, and keeping a sombre watch on Constance. “My dear—what has happened to Connie!” said Mrs. Hooper to Alice in bewilderment. Lord Meyrick had just good-naturedly taken Aunt Ellen into supper, brought her back to the ballroom, and bowed himself off, bursting with conscious virtue, and saying to himself that Constance Bledlow must now give him at least two more dances. Mrs. Hooper had found Alice sitting solitary, and rather drooping. Nobody had offered her supper; Herbert Pryce was not at the ball; her other friends had not showed her any particular attention, and her prettiness had dribbled away, like a bright colour washed out by rain. Her mother could not bear to see her—and then to look at Connie across the room, surrounded by all those silly young men, and wearing the astonishing jewels that were the talk of the ball, and had only been revealed to Mrs. Hooper’s bewildered gaze, when the girl threw off her wraps in the cloak-room. Alice answered her mother’s question with an irritable shake of the head, meant to indicate that Connie was nothing to her. Whereupon Mrs. Hooper settled herself carefully in the chair which she meant to keep for the rest of the evening, smoothing the bright folds of the new dress over her knee. She was much pleased with the new dress; and, of course, it would be paid for some time. But she was almost forgetting it in the excitement of Connie’s behaviour. “She has never danced once with Mr. Falloden!” she whispered in Alice’s ear. “It has been all Mr. Radowitz. And the talk!” She threw up her hands maliciously. “It’s the way they dance—that makes people talk!” said Alice. “As for Mr. Falloden—perhaps she’s found out what a horrid creature he is.” The band struck up. It was a mazurka with a swinging tune. Radowitz opposite sprang to his feet, with a boyish gesture of delight. “Come!” he said to Constance; and they took the floor. Supper had thinned the hall, and the dancers who stood in the doorways and along the walls involuntarily paused to watch the pair. Falloden and Mrs. Glendower had just returned from supper. They too stood among the spectators.