Mr. Francis Vernon had hired the old dancing hall for a midnight party of farewell; and the old dancing hall still possessed an oak door which opened on a long corridor which in its turn opened into the new and improved dancing hall of Daish's Rooms. Halfway along this corridor was a recessed glasshouse now bare of vegetation, bleak and unfriendly in the chilly moonlight but a very convenient place for the renewal of true-lovers' vows when one of the lovers had not been invited to my Lady Bunbutter's rout. So in the press of the opening gavottes, as Phyllida passed down the side of the room to wait beside her mother's empty chair, long white fingers plucked at the black silk mittens that netted her soft little hand. Phyllida started and, looking up, saw the fingers withdraw themselves through the space left by a half-opened door. She looked round in affright, but the fiddlers were busy over the gentle tune and all the world of scandal was dancing or about to dance. The thrill of his touch gave her strength enough to make up her mind and, without more than a moment's hesitation, she slipped through the doorway whose opening was obscured by greenery. A solitary candle lit the long corridor with fitful draughty light. "Come," said Vernon; and, taking his arm, she went down the passage which seemed to stretch far away--to ruin perhaps, but the end was not perceptible owing to the scarce illumination. Soon they were alone in the chilly glasshouse with the moon and a star or two besides. "To-morrow, my dearest life," he whispered. "No, no," said Phyllida. "To-morrow," he went on, "a post-chaise will be waiting by the toyshop, and on the seat a riding hood of peacock blue that to-day I bought for my love." "No! No! Amor, dear Amor, I am afraid." "Afraid, dear heart, afraid?" Far off sounded the musick and far off the laughter of the world. "Afraid that misery will come of it." "Misery, my beloved? I will cherish you for ever." "Amor! Amor! I'm afraid. Something, I cannot say what, I cannot explain my feelings, but something frightens me, I feel--oh! I feel as if I were walking in a dark wet garden. I feel as if--as if the laurels and the evergreens held a knife." Vernon clasped her to him. "My dear and my dear, they hold no more than an arrow; the arrow that has pierced our hearts." Certainly our villain was play-acting, but he was his own audience and that juxtaposition is as near to sincerity as even your hero attains. "You won't betray your Phyllida?" The appeal caught fire from the flaming cheeks of a maid and burned a way direct, poignant, passionate, right through the lustre and tinsel of his emotional costume.