"I am afraid," said Tredennis, "that our acquaintance is too limited at present to allow of my grasping the subject. As I don't chance to know him at all"-- Bertha interposed, still watching the object of discussion with the faintly reflective smile. "I have known him for six years," she said, "and I have not found his adjective yet. He is a cousin of Mr. Amory's. Suppose," she said, turning with perfect seriousness and making a slight movement as if she would rise,--"suppose we go and ask Miss Jessup?" Tredennis offered her his arm. "Let us hope that Miss Jessup can tell us," he said. His imperturbable readiness seemed to please her. Her little laugh had a genuine sound in it. She sat down again. "I am afraid she could not," she said. "See! he is coming to speak to me, and we might ask him." But she did not ask him when he presented himself before her, as he did almost immediately. He had come to remind her that dancing was going on in one of the rooms, and that she had promised him the waltz the musicians had just struck into with a flourish. "Perhaps you will remember that you said the third waltz," he said, "and this is the third waltz." Bertha rose. "I remember," she said, "and I think I am ready for it; but before you take me away you must know Colonel Tredennis. Of course you do know Colonel Tredennis, but you must know him better. Colonel Tredennis, this is Mr. Arbuthnot." The pair bowed, as civility demanded. Of the two, it must be confessed that Tredennis' recognition of the ceremony was the less cordial. Just for the moment he was conscious of feeling secretly repelled by the young man's well-carried, conventional figure and calm, blond countenance,--the figure seemed so correct a copy of a score of others, the blond countenance expressed so little beyond a carefully trained tendency to good manners, entirely unbiassed by any human emotion. "By the time our waltz is finished," said Bertha, as she took his arm, "I hope that Mr. Amory will be here. He promised me that he would come in toward the end of the evening. He will be very glad to find you here." And then, with a little bow to Tredennis, she went away. She did not speak to her companion until they reached the room where the dancers were congregated. Then, as they took their place among the waltzers, she broke the silence. "If I don't dance well," she said, "take into consideration the fact that I have just been conversing with a man I knew eight years ago." "You will be sure to dance well," said Arbuthnot, as they began. "But I don't mind acknowledging an objection to persons I knew eight years ago. I never could find any sufficient reason for their turning up. And, as to your friend, it strikes me it shows a great lack of taste in the Indians to have consented to part with him. It appeared to me that he possessed a manner calculated to endear him to aboriginal society beyond measure."