He would--he will--he is about to speak--he has thrown away the fern-stalk, and has taken her hand firmly in his own. Precisely at this critical moment a well-known voice exclaimed jovially: “So here you are!” and Geoffrey suddenly appeared before them. “Fairly run to earth! A nice dance you’ve led me. None but a couple of regular professional flirts would have found out this cover. Alice, your partners are literally tearing each other to pieces in the ball-room, and unless you wish for _bloodshed_ you had better be off--it’s really serious!” offering his arm. “You have five men waiting for the same dance.” Oh, Geoffrey! Geoffrey! If you had only come five minutes later! Reginald dropped Alice’s hand like the traditional live coal, and Alice shrank back into her corner of the sofa at the first sound of her cousin’s approach. “I’m engaged for this too,” said Reginald, rising and looking at his programme. “You will take Alice back to the ball-room, I suppose, then?” he observed, with extraordinary command of countenance; and, turning away, he sauntered off, ostensibly in search of his own partner. The ball was over; people were leaving in crowds--the Fairfaxes among the first flight. “Alice,” said Geoffrey from his corner of the carriage, “I am proud of you; you took the shine out of them all to-night. _Now_ I can believe in the old duke’s infatuation.” “What duke?” asked Miss Ferrars sleepily. “Have you never heard that the old Duke of St. Remo, old enough to be her great-grandfather, fell madly in love with my pretty little cousin when she was at Nice, and proposed in due form?” “Geoffrey, be quiet; you are really very provoking. Do leave me alone,” crossly. “Don’t interrupt; you know you are very _proud_ of his scalp, though you would not be a duchess. Is not his proposal kept among our family archives to this day?” “Geoffrey! only I am so sleepy I would box your ears. Meanwhile, permit me to remind you of one word--the mystic word, _wait_!” “Fancy, descending from a duke to a baronet! I am a deeply injured man. Only for your nonsense I might have been quoting ‘My cousin, the duchess.’ You would have made such a sweet little nurse. I daresay you would have been spoon-feeding the dear old fellow by this time, whereas, thanks to your heartless conduct, he has been hurried to an early grave.” “How foolish of you not to have accepted him, Alice,” put in Mary, with lazy interest. “Was she not? Miss Fane did all she could to make her; but she only cried and sobbed, and made no end of scenes; so she had to get her own way. You always _do_ get your own way, don’t you, Lady Fairfax?” But all this was thrown away on Alice, who was leaning back in her corner apparently fast asleep. “Only we had to go in our war-paint, it was a very pleasant ball, wasn’t it, Rex? I’m nearly smothered in this tunic. I suppose you, as my senior officer, would not hear of my taking it off, would you?”