"Well, I don't know," he drawled. "Do you think she would have me if I asked her?" "Edgar!" cried Adelaide reproachfully. "You are untrue to yourself when you speak in that manner to me--I, who am your best friend. You have no one who cares so truly, so unselfishly, for your happiness and honor as I do." She began with reproach, but she ended with tenderness; and Edgar, who was wax in the hands of a pretty woman, was touched. "Good, dear Adelaide!" he said with fervor and quite naturally, "you are one of the best girls in the world. But I _must_ go and speak to Miss Dundas, I have neglected her so abominably all the evening." On which, as if to prevent any reply, he turned away, and the next moment was standing by Leam sitting in the window-seat half concealed by the curtain, Alick paying awkward homage as his manner was. Leam gave the faintest little start, that was more a shiver than a start, as he came up. She turned her tragic eyes to him with dumb reproach; but if she was sorrowful she was not craven, and though she meant him to see that she disapproved of his neglect--which had indeed been too evident to be ignored--she did not want him to think that she was unhappy because of it. "Are you not dancing, Miss Dundas?" asked Edgar as gravely as if he was putting a _bonâ fide_ question. "No," said Leam--thinking to herself, "Even he can ask silly questions." "Why not? Are you tired?" "Yes," answered laconic Leam with a little sigh. "I am afraid you are bored, and that you do not like balls," he said with false sympathy, but real love, sorry to see the weariness of face and spirit which he had not been sorry to cause. "I am bored, and I do not like balls," she answered, her directness in nowise softened out of regard for Edgar as the giver of the feast or for Alick as her companion. "Yet you like dancing; so come and shake off your boredom with me," said Edgar with a sudden flush. "They are just beginning to waltz: let me have one turn with you." "No. Why do you ask me? You do not like to dance with me," said Leam proudly. "No? Who told you such nonsense--such a falsehood as that?" hotly. "Yourself," she answered. Alick shifted his place uneasily. Something in Leam's manner to Edgar struck him with an acute sense of distress, and seemed to tell him all that he had hitherto failed to understand. But he felt indignant with Edgar, even though his neglect, at which Leam had been so evidently pained, might to another man have given hopes. He would rather have known her loving, beloved, hence blessed, than wounded by this man's coldness, by his indifference to what was to him, poor faithful and idealizing Alick, such surpassing and supreme delightfulness. "I?" cried Edgar, willfully misunderstanding her. "When did I tell you I did not like to dance With you?" "This evening," said Leam, not looking into his face.