He eyed me, and answered, with a bluff laugh, "Ah! You gave us the very devil of a chase. You appear, my dear Anne, to have a hare's propensity for running in your tracks. And begad, I don't wonder at it!" he wound up, ogling Flora with an insolent stare. Him one might have hunted by scent alone. He reeked of essences. "Present me, _mon brave_." "I'll be shot if I do." "I believe they reserve that privilege for soldiers," he mused. "At any rate they don't extend it to----" I pulled up on the word. He had the upper hand, but I could at least play the game out with decency. "Come," said I, "_contre-danse_ will begin presently. Find yourself a partner, and I promise you shall be our _vis-a-vis_." "You have blood in you, my cousin." He bowed, and went in search of the Master of Ceremonies. I gave an arm to Flora. "Well, and how does Alain strike you?" I asked. "He is a handsome man," she allowed. "If your uncle had treated him differently, I believe----" "And I believe that no woman alive can distinguish between a gentleman and a dancing-master! A posture or two, and you interpret worth. My dear girl--that fellow!" She was silent. I have since learned why. It seems, if you please, that the very same remark had been made to her by that idiot Chevenix, upon me! We were close to the door: we passed it, and I flung a glance into the vestibule. There, sure enough, at the head of the stairs, was posted my friend of the moleskin waistcoat, in talk with a confederate by some shades uglier than himself, a red-headed, loose-legged scoundrel in cinder-grey. I was fairly in the trap. I turned, and between the moving crowd caught Alain's eye and his evil smile. He had found a partner: no less a personage than Lady Frazer of the lilac sarsnet and diamond bandeau. For some unaccountable reason, in this infernal _impasse_ my spirits began to rise, to soar. I declare it: I led Flora forward to the set with a gaiety which may have been unnatural, but was certainly not factitious. A Scotsman would have called me fey. As the song goes--and it matters not if I had it then, or read it later in my wife's library-- "Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He played a spring and danced it round Beneath----" never mind what. The band played the spring and I danced it round, while my cousin eyed me with extorted approval. The quadrille includes an absurd figure--called, I think, _La Pastourelle_. You take a lady with either hand, and jig them to and fro, for all the world like an Englishman of legend parading a couple of wives for sale at Smithfield; while the other male, like a timid purchaser, backs and advances with his arms dangling. "I've lived a life of sturt and strife, I die by treacherie----" I challenged Alain with an open smile as he backed before us; and no sooner was the dance over, than I saw him desert Lady Frazer on a hurried excuse, and seek the door to satisfy himself that his men were on guard.