Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons. "Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is that you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?" "Four o'clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, straightening up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you frozen?" Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, incredulous of the hour and of his own slumber. "I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in such a tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid relieved her of furs and scarf. "Susanne, just unhook those two that I can't manage; light the fire in my bedroom; _et merci bien, ma petite!_" The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously spilled from Selwyn's knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked noiselessly to the hearth. "I don't know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still abashed by his plight. "We rekindled the fire for your benefit," she said; "you had better use it before you retire." And she seated herself in the arm-chair, stretching out her ungloved hands to the blaze--smooth, innocent hands, so soft, so amazingly fresh and white. He moved a step forward into the warmth, stood a moment, then reached forward for a chair and drew it up beside hers. "Do you mean to say you are not sleepy?" he asked. "I? No, not in the least. I will be to-morrow, though." "Did you have a good time?" "Yes--rather." "Wasn't it gay?" "Gay? Oh, very." Her replies were unusually short--almost preoccupied. She was generally more communicative. "You danced a lot, I dare say," he ventured. "Yes--a lot," studying the floor. "Decent partners?" "Oh, yes." "Who was there?" She looked up at him. "_You_ were not there," she said, smiling. "No; I cut it. But I did not know you were going; you said nothing about it." "Of course, you would have stayed if you had known, Captain Selwyn?" She was still smiling. "Of course," he replied. "Would you really?" "Why, yes." There was something not perfectly familiar to him in the girl's bright brevity, in her direct personal inquiry; for between them, hitherto, the gaily impersonal had ruled except in moments of lightest badinage. "Was it an amusing dinner?" she asked, in her turn. "Rather." Then he looked up at her, but she had stretched her slim silk-shod feet to the fender, and her head was bent aside, so that he could see only the curve of the cheek and the little close-set ear under its ruddy mass of gold. "Who was there?" she asked, too, carelessly.