This faith, so authoritatively expressed by a successful young man, was put to the test soon after the dance had begun. He saw Margaret dancing with John--her eyes shining with happiness in a manner that might have caused another lover a little uneasiness. But Ordith did not for a moment feel insecure. He could see that John had gained ground, that the first ramparts of reserve had been overpassed; but he had no fear. “Unlike poles attract,” he repeated, choosing his platitude, and confident of his power to carry attack upon that line to a successful issue. So, before seeking out the important lady he had seen among the crowd and had chosen for his immediate favour, he stood gazing at Margaret’s neck and shoulders and admiring her movement with the eye of an anatomist. He did not know that John had advanced farther than the first ramparts. In the morning, when he and Hugh had gone together to buy their China equipment, Margaret had come to offer feminine advice on materials. She had watched them turning over shirts, and hesitating, and retracting decisions in the manner of men at the counter. Women and their shopping? Oh, but men were infinitely worse! They had so small a field of choice, and yet they got lost in it. She laughed at this and a thousand trifles, and laughter is the truest ranging-arrow in love’s quiver. London, too, with its bright sun and sky, and the cool wind that stirred up the sweet scent of her furs, had conspired to bring them together. Hugh joined the conspiracy by accepting an invitation to lunch with an old friend whom he met in Mr. Reeve’s shop. John and Margaret came home by way of Marble Arch and a diagonal cut through the Park. The dying winter was old and weak--so weak that he could not gather up and hide away in his dark box the coins of gold scattered beneath the trees by the sunshine or the strands woven among the grasses. And, as they went, they talked of all the things on earth they held most dear--their nurseries and old toys, terra-cotta flower-pots, the summer sound of lawns being mown, firelight in mirrors, books, the silky touch of dogs’ ears--each as the centre of some tale which seemed peculiar to their own autobiographies, though, at that moment, it was being remembered afresh, in one form or another, by every young creature--and every old one, too, who wasn’t too stupid to value such things--from Kensington Palace to the western pavement of Park Lane.