“What’s the matter?” asked my sister. “He won’t let me go.” “He’ll be tired first,” Lettie answered. Alice was released, but she did not move. She sat with wrinkled forehead trying his cigarette. She blew out little tiny whiffs of smoke, and thought about it; she sent a small puff down her nostrils, and rubbed her nose. “It’s not as nice as it looks,” she said. He laughed at her with masculine indulgence. “Pretty boy,” she said, stroking his chin. “Am I?” he murmured languidly. “Cheek!” she cried, and she boxed his ears. Then “Oh, pore fing!” she said, and kissed him. She turned round to wink at my mother and at Lettie. She found the latter sitting in the old position with Leslie, two in a chair. He was toying with her arm; holding it and stroking it. “Isn’t it lovely?” he said, kissing the forearm, “so warm and yet so white. Io—it reminds one of Io.” “Somebody else talking about heifers,” murmured Alice to George. “Can you remember,” said Leslie, speaking low, “that man in Merimée who wanted to bite his wife and taste her blood?” “I do,” said Lettie. “Have you a strain of wild beast too?” “Perhaps,” he laughed, “I wish these folks had gone. Your hair is all loose in your neck—it looks lovely like that though——” Alice, the mocker, had unbuttoned the cuff of the thick wrist that lay idly on her knee, and had pushed his sleeve a little way. “Ah!” she said. “What a pretty arm, brown as an overbaked loaf!” He watched her smiling. “Hard as a brick,” she added. “Do you like it?” he drawled. “No,” she said emphatically, in a tone that meant “yes.” “It makes me feel shivery.” He smiled again. She superposed her tiny pale, flower-like hands on his. He lay back looking at them curiously. “Do you feel as if your hands were full of silver?” she asked almost wistfully, mocking. “Better than that,” he replied gently. “And your heart full of gold?” she mocked. “Of hell!” he replied briefly. Alice looked at him searchingly. “And am I like a blue-bottle buzzing in your window to keep your company?” she asked. He laughed. “Good-bye,” she said, slipping down and leaving him. “Don’t go,” he said—but too late. The irruption of Alice into the quiet, sentimental party was like taking a bright light into a sleeping hen-roost. Everybody jumped up and wanted to do something. They cried out for a dance. “Emily—play a waltz—you won’t mind, will you, George? What! You don’t dance, Tom? Oh, Marie!” “I don’t mind, Lettie,” protested Marie. “Dance with me, Alice,” said George, smiling “and Cyril will take Miss Tempest.” “Glory!—come on—do or die!” said Alice. We began to dance. I saw Lettie watching, and I looked round. George was waltzing with Alice, dancing passably, laughing at her remarks. Lettie was not listening to what her lover was saying to her; she was watching the laughing pair. At the end she went to George. “Why!” she said, “You can——”