Faint with excess of joy, she lay still in his passionate clasp. Oh, the sweetness of that moment! Could she ever forget it? There rushed over her all the love songs, all the poetry she had ever read; but it seemed to the girl that all were tame in their descriptions of happy love. Perhaps it was beyond description. She felt quite sure that she herself could never have found words strong enough in which to describe the indescribable rapture of that moment when she leaned, blushing and palpitating, upon her lover’s breast, with his lips on hers, and his arms clasping her so close, so tight, while between passionate kisses he called her, “Love, darling, wife!” CHAPTER XLV. Thea was dressing for the ball. It took her a long, long time, she stopped so often to dream of her new-found happiness, and to thrill anew at the memory of the looks of love and the passionate caresses Norman had given to her, his girlish little love. “Oh, how good he is to me! I will try to make him very, very happy,” she thought; and in her delirium of love and rapture would have made slow work with her toilet if thoughtful Mrs. de Vere had not sent her maid to help her and come herself at the last to see how it progressed. She sent the maid out, saying that there was no more to do, and then she took the beautiful creature in her arms and kissed her tenderly. “So you are going to be my daughter,” she said, fondly. “Norman has told me. I hope you will be very happy, dear. My son has but one fault; he has a jealous temperament, and that caused all his trouble with poor Camille. You must guard against coquetry, Sweetheart; he will never be able to bear it,” she said, with a sigh; and she honestly believed what she said. In her mind Camille had been a martyr. “I have never flirted, dear Mrs. de Vere, and I shall be most careful not to do anything to vex him,” cried happy Thea, in eager earnest. “That is right,” approvingly. “You will be on your guard to-night, love. Of course you will have many admirers. You can not help it, you are so lovely in tulle and lilies of the valley. It will be white satin and orange-blossoms soon, for I know Norman will insist on an early marriage. But, as I was saying, be careful to treat all alike. If any one proposes to you, tell him frankly you are engaged to my son. It is better to have that understood at once. You need not say it is a new thing; if they understand the engagement has existed some time, it does not matter, my dear,” anxiously. “But no one is going to propose to me to-night. I am not vain enough to fancy two men proposing to me in one day,” laughed the happy girl; but the event justified Mrs. de Vere’s hint. When the ball was at its height, Cameron Bentley managed to catch Thea alone for a few moments in a flowery alcove, and declared his love on the spot in an incoherent fashion that went very well with a certain dogged, harassed expression he had worn all the evening.