When the last notes had died away, Wellfield rose very decidedly, nor could he be prevailed upon to sing another note. The company clustered round him, thanked him, and congratulated him; asked to be introduced to him, and dispersed. Dancing began again, and still Sara sat as if spell-bound, in the place where he had left her. ‘I have come to know if you approved?’ murmured Jerome’s voice beside her. She looked up, and met his eyes with an expression in them, before which her own in vain tried to remain calm and untroubled. ‘If I approved?’ she said, indistinctly. ‘How can you ask?’ Jerome was leaning against the wall, looking down at her—looking, too, as undisturbed as if he had been asking her whether she would have an ice. In the same manner, with the same tone, so low that none but she could hear it, he added: ‘And did you understand?’ ‘I—I think so,’ said Sara, faintly. ‘Herr Wellfield, Miss Ford! the cotillon is about to begin. Here is your favour, Mr. Wellfield. Be good enough to let me pin it on, and then go and find your partner.’ It was Fräulein von Lehnberg, one of the countess’s Berlin cousins, who spoke, with some impatience in her voice; for she had twice addressed Jerome, and he had taken no notice of her. He stepped forward now, and held the basket of ribbons while she pinned on his favour, with an imperturbable severity of gravity which irritated the young lady exceedingly. Then he offered Sara his arm, and they advanced to meet the rest of the company. In the discussions next day on the subject, it was universally decided that Mr. Wellfield might be a musical, Miss Ford an artistic prodigy; but that in the matter of dancing a cotillon they both displayed to the full that insular stiffness characteristic of their nation. That little Emily Leigh had ten times the spirit of her taller and handsomer country-woman. How gracefully she danced, and contrived to make even that maypole, Hans Lemde, look almost graceful too. Beloved and candid discussions of the day after! How much does not society and the individual owe to you, in the matter of establishment of the facts, and an exhaustive analysis of the motives actuating the behaviour of those who come before your tribunal! May nothing ever occur to make you less vigorous or less rigorous than you are at this day! [Illustration] CHAPTER III. A LANDPARTEI. On the following morning, Sara came into the room where Falkenberg was standing alone, waiting for the rest of the company who were going to Lahnburg. In her hand she carried a small canvas. ‘Here, Herr Falkenberg, is the sketch you wished to see. I remembered it, and brought it downstairs with me.’ Falkenberg thanked her, took the sketch, and looked at it in silence, until Sara said: ‘It is as I expected. You are racking your brains to find out how to say “Atrocious” so that it shall sound like something else.’