He was apologizing to her as to a lady, and the angry look in her eyes began to soften and the tears to fill them. She couldn’t keep them back, and as Alex. held her hands they dropped upon her cheeks and stood upon her lashes. “Fanny,” Alex. said, soothingly. “Don’t cry. You make me feel like a cad. I never insulted a woman in my life. I certainly would not begin with you. Why do you cry?” “I don’t know, unless I am a little homesick,” Sherry replied, getting her hands free and wiping her tears away, while Alex. thought how beautiful she was, seen under that light. As she met his look of admiration, which she could not mistake, she stepped back and continued: “I like to dance, and that waltz brought things back and made me think of home.” “Yes, I see,” Alex. answered. “Of course you like to dance. Suppose we take another turn across the piazza.” He held out his arms, but Sherry shook her head. She knew what was proper better than he, and said, “I think you’d better go. Your guests will be missing you.” “Let them miss me,” Alex. said, with a feeling that he would rather stay there and talk to this girl, who fascinated and puzzled him, and whose face grew each moment lovelier as her smiles came and went and her eyes beamed upon him. “Fanny,” he said, impulsively, “haven’t I seen you before?” Sherry shook her head, and he continued: “Then I have dreamed of you, or some one like you. I have it,” and he snapped his fingers exultingly; “I saw a girl at the opera with old,—I beg your pardon,—with the Pledgers more than a year ago. She was very like you. Queer, isn’t it? Where is your home?” Before she could answer him there was a loud call for “Alex., Alex., where are you? We want you in the Lancers.” “I must go, as I have to see the _chef_. I’d forgotten him entirely. You are sure you have forgiven me? I couldn’t help it, and you waltz as if you had been at it all your life,” Alex. said, offering her his hand, in which for answer she laid hers, blushing and withdrawing it quickly as she felt his fingers closing over it with a warm pressure. The next moment he was gone, and when Sherry next saw him she, with Nos. 2, 3 and 4, was waiting upon his guests, while her cheeks burned as she recalled the waltz upon the piazza and felt again the pressure of Alex.’s hand and heard the tone of his voice as he called her Fanny and told her not to cry. It was late before the party broke up, and later still before Alex. fell into a disturbed sleep, in which he dreamed of the lovely face which had looked at him so wistfully that he would liked to have kissed it. Other faces which had been close to his and other forms which had been in his arms, with no attempt to withdraw from them, were also in his dreams, as he lived over the events of the night, but Sherry was always to the front, and he was beginning a second waltz with her when Amy pounded at his door, telling him that breakfast had been over an hour and that some of them were going for a drive.