He looked at her and tried to forget everything else. She was pretty and dainty enough to satisfy the most exciting man, and she loved him! To a man who is disappointed and unhappy there is great consolation in the knowledge that to one person at least he counts before anything else in the world. She looked up at him, and impulsively he took a step towards her; another moment and Micky would have sealed his fate, had not Mrs. Deland pushed open the door and walked into the room. It had not been any effort for her to forgive Micky for his cavalier treatment of her daughter. For the last week she had been busy telling every one that Marie and Micky had made up their quarrel--"entirely Marie's fault it was, you know," and so on. "You are going to give me half your dances at least," Micky said, when they reached the Hoopers'. He took the card from Marie's hand and filled in his own initials recklessly against the numbers. She laughed tremulously; she was too happy to think of anything but the present; she had got Micky again, and that was all she cared about. "Good-evening!" said a voice at her side, and, turning, she found Raymond Ashton at her elbow. Marie did not care particularly for Ashton. She greeted him rather coldly. "So you're back in town," she said. "And your wife?" "Not here to-night," he answered. "She has a bad cold, so I persuaded her to stay at home. May I have a dance?" She gave him her card reluctantly. She would have liked to have refused, but she thought Micky would be annoyed; she did not know that he and this man were friends no longer. She saw him glance at Micky's many initials on her card, saw the half ironical smile he gave as he looked at her. "Mellowes is back, then?" he said. "Yes--he came with us to-night." "Really! I thought----" he paused eloquently. Marie flushed, she knew quite well what he meant; that he must have known how Micky had once deserted her. "I understood that Mellowes was in Paris." Ashton went on calmly. "At least I was told so by an ... acquaintance of mine--who was staying there with him." Marie's eyes dilated. "Father and I crossed by the same boat as he did," she said with an effort. "He was alone then----" Ashton laughed detestably. "Ah, but not afterwards," he said--then checked himself. "But I forgot. I must not tell tales out of school, only as every one seems to have learned of his _penchant_ for the little lady from Eldred's"--he laughed lightly. Marie stood staring down the long ballroom. The colour slowly faded from her cheeks, leaving her as white as her frock. She looked at Ashton, intent on a crease in his glove, and she broke out stammering: "How dare you say such a thing! I don't believe you--in Paris--Micky----" He raised his brows with assumed surprise. "I'm sorry--perhaps I should not have spoken--but I thought every one knew----"