Miss Brooke did not address her words to the floor, but sitting with her chair at an angle to his, looking straight at him as she spoke. Paul found the ordeal a fascinating but sufficiently trying one. He had no chance against this wonderful girlish face, with its sparkling blue eyes and its subtle quality of sincerity and spirituality; tantalising by the charm of its smile, which suggested moments of wickedness and kissing, and provoking by its air of unawareness of its calm-destroying powers. He was conscious, too, of a long, white neck rising above a pair of well-knit shoulders, out of a mass of white fluffy trimmings, in which were set with careless art a few deep-red velvet flowers. On her forehead lay two roguish curls that moved freely, and each temple was covered by a bewitching lock, whose end curled inwards toward the ear. At the back her hair was drawn right up into curls, leaving the whole neck free, and showing the contour of the gracefully-poised head. Her white gown seemed woven of some fairy substance, embroidered with myriad gold spots, and encircled round the waist with three golden bands. The pink, round flesh of the upper arm showed firm and cool through the web of the sleeve that met the long white glove at the elbow. The bodice followed closely the modelling of the bust, and the skirt swept downwards, ending in a mass of foam-like fluff amid which nestled the tips of two neat shoes. Altogether a superb girl, dainty and supple, without any suggestion of fragility. The comparative merits of the English and American waltzes were still occupying their attention. "Now, tell me, Mr. Middleton," she asked, after enthusiastically descanting on the pleasure and grace of the "long glide," "haven't I really converted you?" "I want very much to be converted, but your waltz seems formidable. I am afraid of it." "I'm sure it would not take you long to learn. Cannot I really coax you into a promise to try it? I enjoy making converts--I have missionary tendencies in the blood." "That's interesting. Because there are tendencies in my blood, too. Anti-missionary ones, however. To be true to the family tradition, I'm not sure whether I ought not resist your coaxings." "Which I'm sure you're not going to do." Her face took on an expression of mock imploration. "But, tell me, how far back does your tradition go, and how did it arise?" "It began with my grandfather, whose pet idea was that the energy and money spent on missions should be employed at home for the raising of the lower classes. My father went a step further by deciding the particular form in which the lower classes should reap the benefit, and he died with the hope that the dream of two generations should be realised by me."