After that, one dance succeeded another--numbers of which I had to spend with my _fiancé_, but, warned by my first experience, I always pretended a great thirst, or a desire to see the rooms, or an obligation to return to the Marquis, and so went to no more sitting-out places. I did not again see the tall man--he seemed to have disappeared until a dance after supper, when we met him with Lady Tilchester. "Ah! here you are," she said. "I have been wanting to find you to introduce--" At that moment an old gentleman guffawed loudly near us, and so I did not catch the name she said, but we bowed, and the tall man asked me if I would dance that one with him. Without the least hesitation I disengaged my hand from the arm of Augustus (he likes to walk thus on every occasion), and said, "Yes." "Oh! I say," said my _fiancé_, with the savage look in his face, "you were going to dance with me." Then Lady Tilchester interfered--what a dear and kind soul she must have! She said so sweetly, as if Augustus was a prince, "Won't you accept me as a substitute, Mr. Gurrage?" Augustus was overcome with pride, and relinquished me with the best grace. Now it was really bliss, dancing with this man; we swam along, swift and smoothly. I could no longer see the walls; a maze of lights was all my vision grasped--I felt bewildered--happy. We stopped a moment and he bent down and smiled at me. "You look as if you liked dancing," he said. "Poor Lady Tilchester is being mauled by that bear in your place." I laughed. "I love dancing." "I seldom do this sort of thing," he continued, "but you are a beautiful mover," and we began again. When it was over we went and sat down in the very alcove of my first dance with Augustus. I had no uneasiness this time! I can't say what there was about my partner--a whimsical humor, a slight mocking sound in his voice, which pleased me; he took nothing seriously; everything he said was as light as a thistle-down; he reminded me of the wit of grandmamma and the Marquis; we got on beautifully. "I seem to have seen you before," he said, at last. "Have I met you in Paris? or am I only dreaming? because I know you so well in the galleries at Versailles--you stepped down from those frames just to honor us to-night, did you not?--and you will go back at cock-crow!" "If I only could!" He asked me if I was staying at Brackney or Henchhurst, and when I said no, that I lived only a few miles off, he seemed so surprised.