The figure immediately zigzagged back, with the same effect of eager, inquiring haste. It paused before Abner and Mrs. Whyland and suddenly sidled up. Abner recognised Adrian Bond. "Clytie?" said Bond. "Has anybody seen or heard anything of Clytie Summers?" "Well, well," said Mrs. Whyland, looking him over; "you are enrolled among the Boutet de Monvel boys too, are you?" Bond ran his eye down his slim legs with fatuous complacency and fingered the fur fringe of his doublet and pushed his steep flat-topped cap over to a different angle. Abner looked at him with contemptuous amazement and would not even speak. "Her aunt hasn't heard a word from her for a week," said Bond. "That settlement has claimed her, body and soul. All she does is to write home for more clothes. I expect she has completely forgotten all about our little affair to-night. I thought of course she was going to march with me, but----" And he darted away to resume his quest. "She will come," said Mrs. Whyland. "And her cap will be higher and her veil longer and the pattern of her brocade bigger and more startling than anybody else can show." Little O'Grady moved past with a Maid of Astolat, who wore white cloth-of-gold and carried a big lily above each ear and dropped a long full-flowered stalk over her partner's shoulder. Medora drifted by in company with a Mexican vaquero. Her white garments fluttered famously against the other's costume of yellow and black. She had let down her abundant dark hair and then carelessly caught it up again and woven into it a garland of mistletoe. She smiled on Abner with a plaintive, weary lifting of her eyebrows; she appeared to be "creating atmosphere" again, just as on the afternoon when he had first seen her pouring tea. She seemed a long way off. The occasion itself removed her one stage from him, and her costume another, and her bearing a third. Was this the same girl who had so dexterously snatched open the stove door in that farm-house kitchen and had been so active, as revealed by glimpses from the corridor, in beating up pillows and in casting sheets and coverlets to the morning air? The waltz suddenly ended and the Mexican renounced Medora only a few steps beyond Abner. She came along and took a vacant chair next to Edith Whyland. "Are you enjoying it?" she asked Abner. "It is very instructive; it is most typical," he replied. The orchestra presently began again, but Medora remained in her place. "Aren't you dancing this time?" asked Mrs. Whyland. "Yes," replied Medora deliberately; "I'm dancing with Mr. Joyce." She handed Edith her card. Abner looked across to her with a startled, puzzled expression. "So you are," said Mrs. Whyland. "J-o-y-c-e," she read, and handed the card back.