"Ask me to dance, Floyd," she whispered. "I do not dance, Georgy," I returned gravely, and drew back; and presently she was whirling about again, her flower-crowned head gyrating against first one black-coated shoulder and then another. I saw Jack Holt leaning against a pillar, and went up to him. "How do you get on, Floyd?" he asked in his slow, easy way. "Rather heavy work, eh?" "Not at all," said I, feeling all the keen joy of youth: "I think it delightful. Miss Lenox spoke to me, Jack. Of course you have seen her." "Oh yes," Jack laughed good-naturedly. "She at once told me I looked countrified and old-fashioned--that my hair was too long and my gloves were outrageous. In fact, she was ashamed to own me, and declared that nothing should induce her to confess she was engaged to me until I looked less seedy." We both laughed at this. Jack had a handsome allowance, which he spent almost entirely upon the girl he loved. She was quite used to his generosity toward her and self-denial toward himself, and gave him no more credit for it than the rest of us award to the blessings we count on assuredly. "You don't mind her nonsense, Jack?" "Not at all. She has such spirits she must chatter. You haven't seen her for ages, Floyd: do you think her improved? Has she grown handsomer?" I was conscious of a dulness and thickness in my voice as I replied, "She is much handsomer." "She is more womanly," pursued Jack: "I think her manner has softened a little. There is more tenderness about it: as a girl she was sometimes a trifle--hard. Now--But you see how she is, Floyd: there is nobody like her. Good God! I ask myself sometimes what that perfect creature can see in me." "A good deal apparently, since she is to be your wife." I said it without faltering, and felt better after it. Something seemed to clear away from my brain, and I could look at Georgy now with less emotion. She was all that was bright and beautiful and winning, but--she was engaged to Jack Holt. She showed slight consciousness of any restraint on her perfect freedom, however, and gave away Jack's roses, purchased that day at a high figure, before his eyes. Once or twice, when she passed us, she smiled and nodded in the gayest good spirits; and at last, when she was tired of dancing and wanted an ice, she beckoned to Jack, put her hand inside his arm and led him into the conservatory. "How well she does it!" said Harry Dart, coming up to me. "Quite the brilliant belle! By Jove! how she dances! I despise the girl with her greedy maw, and deuced airs of high gentility when she is a perfect beggar, but it is a second heaven to dance with her. She has the _go_ of a wild animal in her. She is a little like a panther--so round, so sleek, so agile in her spring. I told her just now I should like to paint her--yellow eyes, hair like an aureole, supple form and satin coat--lying on a panther-skin." "Her eyes are not yellow."