"You don't like that chicken," Van Bleit remarked abruptly to Mrs Lawless, observing that she was only trifling with the food upon her plate. "Let me send it away and get you something else." "Please, don't," she remonstrated. "I've already dined. I'm just keeping you in countenance." "But that's rotten for you," he expostulated. "If I had really thought it would bore you, I wouldn't have brought you here. Drink some more champagne then, if you won't eat." "I'm not in the least bored," she replied, flashing a brilliant smile at him. "To eat is not my sole source of amusement. There is plenty to interest me here for an hour, if you are inclined to stay that time." "I'm not," he returned. "I'm longing to try the floor. I've not danced yet... I've been waiting. You'll give me the first waltz after supper?" She met his bold, eager gaze pensively, her splendid dreamy eyes expressing a slight hesitation. "You know I don't care for dancing," she said. "Yes, I know. But... just one waltz!" He leaned nearer to her. "You won't disappoint me? ... I have waited through the entire evening for this." She smiled at the extravagance, but faintly, and looked away across the crowded room with its numberless small tables, and the gay, careless, laughing company that filled them. "Oh! if you make so much of it!" she said. Mrs Smythe, who was also gazing about her with more interest in the company than in the supper, here interposed with the irrelevant remark: "I think Colonel Grey is the most distinguished-looking man I know." Van Bleit grunted. "Oh! I know you don't like him, Karl... It's obvious that the antipathy is mutual. But that doesn't make him any the less interesting from a woman's point of view. What do you think, Zoe?" "I think he is exactly what you describe him." Mrs Smythe looked at her in surprise. It was not the words, but the manner in which they were delivered, that arrested her attention. "You don't like him either," she said. Mrs Lawless smiled. "_He_ doesn't like _me_," she corrected. "And though I find that attitude interesting, it does not encourage affection on my side." "Impossible!" Van Bleit exclaimed incredulously. "Dear lady, you must be mistaken. I haven't much of an opinion of him, but he can't be such an unappreciative hog." The man referred to had risen, and, with his supper companion, now prepared to leave the room. They were not the first to make a move; the tables had thinned considerably since the entry of Van Bleit's party. He paused for a second by Mrs Smythe's chair and spoke to her, and bowed to Mrs Lawless. He did not see Van Bleit. Neither did he see Lawless. When he passed his table his head was turned towards his companion and he was deep in conversation with her. Van Bleit watched him curiously, and the finely pointed ends of his moustache lifted slightly as the lips beneath it smiled. "He rather overdoes it," he murmured. "Overdoes what?" his cousin questioned.