Just at this lovely moment, when the beautiful Madam Whitworth had thrown herself into my arms and I had been obliged by my cunning to hold her there instead of flinging her to the floor as I naturally desired, there arrived at the door of the room which we were occupying with our plotting, my tall and awful Uncle, the General Robert, and looked down upon us with the lightnings of a storm in his eyes. Then, before I could make exclamation and betray his presence to the lady in my arms, whose back was turned in his direction, he had disappeared. Did I betray that presence to the lady? I did not. I decided that it would be much to the advantage of the affair to have the lady in ignorance of his knowledge. "You must go now, boy," she said at about the moment in which I could no longer keep my dissembling alive. "Send the Governor in here to me, for it is about the time I had promised to dance with him. I want to talk with him and try to make him see some at least of this matter in the right light. Go; and come to me to-morrow at four--for--for France." I went and it was with much joy in the going. I stopped at a tall window to get into my lungs a very deep supply of atmosphere and also to take counsel with myself. "Mr. Robert Carruthers," I said to myself, "you are in what that Mr. G. Slade of Detroit said to be a 'hell of a fix' when the nice aunt of that beautiful and refined 'skirt' of Saint Joseph, Missouri, discovered her to be in his embrace of farewell. I cannot tell to my Uncle, the General Robert, that it is that I, a woman of honor, have planned for myself, a man of dishonor, to betray a woman into his hands, and I shall receive from him what that Buzz Clendenning calls to be a 'dressing down.' But I must go to send to Madam Delilah now the great Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth and for what she does to him that is unholy she will answer to Robert Carruthers or--or Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye." And then immediately I went to deliver the summons of Madam Whitworth to the Gouverneur Faulkner and I did not look into his face as I spoke the words, but waited with my eyes cast down to the floor until he dismissed me. Then after that very painful hour of intrigue I allowed to Mr. Robert Carruthers another of very delightful gayety with all of the "chiffon pinafore" ladies upon the ballroom floor. I have in my blood that gayety which led some of my ancestors to laugh and compliment each other and play piquet up even to the edge of the guillotine, and I refused to see the countenance of my Uncle, the General Robert, regarding me from the door in the end of the ballroom. I considered that an hour of pleasure was a sacred thing not to be interfered with, and I danced with that sweet Sue Tomlinson right past the edge of his toes while I could feel the delicious giggle within her, which was answering that within me, at his fierce regard of us both.