Judith was entering with spirit, with a zeal that was almost feverish, into the preparations for the forthcoming festivity. She and Reuben had scarcely spoken to one another since the Day of Atonement. They had met once or twice at family gatherings, at which, either by accident, or design on Reuben’s part, there had been no opportunity for private conversation. Perhaps an instinctive feeling that the old relations were imperilled and that no new ones could ever be so satisfactory held them apart. Meanwhile Judith unconsciously fixed her mind on the one definite fact that Reuben would be at the Leunigers’ dance. It was in the crowded solitude of ball-rooms that they had hitherto found their best opportunity. The night so much prepared for came round at last, and the house in Kensington Palace Gardens became for the time being the scene of ceaseless activity. Ernest had gone away into the country with the person who was always talked of as his valet; and Leo, of course, was in Cambridge; but the rest of the family--not excepting Lionel and Sidney, who handed programmes--had mustered in great force to do honour to the event. From an early hour poor Mrs. Leuniger had taken up her station in the doorway of the primrose-coloured drawing-room, where she stood dejectedly welcoming her guests. She was wearing a quantity of valuable lace, very much crumpled, and had a profusion of diamonds scattered about her person, but had apparently forgotten to do her hair. Rose, in short, voluminous skirts of pink tulle, and a pale pink satin bodice fitting close about her plump person, defining the lines of her ample hips, was performing introductions with noisy zeal, with the help of Jack Quixano, whom she had constituted her _aide-de-camp_. The Montague Cohens had come early, and Adelaide, in a very grand gown, scrutinized the scene with breathless interest, secretly wondering why more people had not asked her to dance. Judith was looking very well. Her short, diaphanous white ball-gown, with its low-cut, tight-fitting satin bodice was not exactly a dignified garment, but she managed to maintain, in spite of it, her customary air of stateliness. Moreover to-night some indefinable change had come over the character of her beauty, heightening it, intensifying it, giving it new life and colour. The calm, unawakened look which many people had found so baffling, had left her face; the eyes, always curiously mournful, shone out with a new soft fire. Bertie Lee-Harrison, tripping jauntily into the ball-room, remained transfixed a moment in excited admiration. What a beautiful woman was this cousin, or pseudo-cousin, of Sachs’s! How infinitely better bred she seemed than the people surrounding her! The Quixanos, as Reuben had told him, were _sephardim_, for whose claim to birth he had the greatest respect. But as for that red-headed young man, her brother--there were no marks of breeding about _him_!