"No! no!" she exclaimed, looking straight before her, with dangerously bright eyes; "don't say that to me. Don't pity me, please--just yet--it isn't good for me. I need--I need"-- There was a second or so of dead silence. She did not tell him what she needed. When they entered the ball-room a waltz was being played, and the floor was thronged with dancers; the ladies who formed the committee of reception stood near the door; a party of guests had just received the usual greetings and retired. The commandress-in-chief turned to meet the new-comers. She was a stately and severe dowager, with no intention of flinching from her duty; but her sudden recognition of the approaching senatorial figure was productive of a bewilderment almost too great for her experience to cope with. She looked, caught her breath, lost it and her composure at one and the same time, cast a despairing glance at her aides, and fell a victim to circumstances. Here was the subject under ban calmly making the most graceful and self-possessed obeisance before her, and her escort was the man of whom it had been said that a few days ago he had exposed her infamous plotting. This was more than even the most experienced matron could be prepared for. It must be admitted that her presence of mind deserted her, and that her greetings were not marked by the ready tact which usually characterized them. "My first ball, madam," remarked the senator, scenting difficulty in the breeze, and confronting it boldly. "But for my friend, Mrs. Amory, I am afraid I should not be here. I begin to feel indebted to her already." "It promises very well," said Bertha. "I never saw the room gayer. How pretty the decorations are!" They passed on to make room for others, leaving the estimable ladies behind them pale with excitement, and more demoralized than they would have been willing to admit. "What does it mean?" they asked one another. "They appear to be the best of friends! What are we to understand?" There was one kindly matron at the end of the line who looked after the pair with an expression of sympathy which was rather at variance with the severity of the rôle she had been called upon to enact. "It appears," she said, "as if the whole story might be a fabrication, and the senator determined to prove it so. I hope with all my heart he will." By the time they reached their seats the news of their arrival had made the circle of the room. Bertha herself, while she had listened with a smile to her escort's remarks, had seen amazement and recognition flash out upon a score of faces; but she had preserved her smile intact, and still wore it when she took her chair. She spoke to Blundel, waving her fan with a soft, even motion. "We have run the gauntlet," she said, "and we have chosen a good position. Almost everybody in the room has seen us; almost every one in the room is looking at us." "Let them look!" he answered. "I have no objection to it."