They stood for a moment in awkward silence, while, from the lighted house where the flying figures circled, came the waltz: " I dreamt that I dwe- helt in ma-har-ble halls." Tom's own dreams were much wilder than the gypsy girl's; he knew that; yet he spoke out bravely:
"Will you dance the two first with me?"
Miss Betty bit her lip, frowned, turned away, and, vouchsafing no reply, walked toward the house with her eyes fixed on the ground; but just as they reached the door she flashed over him a look that scorched him from head to foot, and sent his spirits down through the soles of his boots to excavate a grotto in the depths of the earth, so charged it was with wrathful pity and contempt.
"Yes!" she said abruptly, and followed Mrs. Tanberry to the dressing-room.
The elder lady shook her head solemnly as she emerged from the enormous folds of a yellow silk cloak. "Ah, Princess," she said, touching the girl's shoulder with her jeweled hand, "I told you I was a very foolish woman, and I am, but not so foolish as to offer advice often. Yet, believe me, it won't do. I think that is one of the greatest young men I ever knew, and it's a pity--but it won't do."
Miss Betty kept her face away from her guardian for a moment. No inconsiderable amount of information had drifted to her, from here and there, regarding the career of Crailey Gray, and she thought how intensely she would have hated any person in the world except Mrs. Tanberry for pre- suming to think she needed to be warned against the charms of this serenading lady-killer, who was the property of another girl.
"You must keep him away, I think," ventured Mrs. Tanberry, gently.
At that Betty turned to her and said, sharply:
"I will. After this, please let us never speak of him again."
A slow nod of the other's turbaned head indicated the gravest acquiescence. She saw that her companion's cheeks were still crimson. "I understand," said she.
A buzz of whispering, like a July beetle, followed Miss Carewe and her partner about the room during the next dance. How had Tom managed it?
Had her father never told her? Who had dared to introduce them? Fanchon was the only one who knew, and as she whirled by with Will Cummings, she raised her absent glance long enough to give Tom an affectionate and warning shake of the head.
Tom did not see this; Miss Carewe did. Alas! She smiled upon him instantly and looked deep into his eyes. It was the third time.
She was not afraid of this man-flirt; he was to be settled with once and forever. She intended to avenge both Fanchon and herself; yet it is a hazardous game, this piercing of eye with eye, because the point which seeks to penetrate may soften and melt, leaving one defenseless. For perhaps ten seconds that straight look lasted, while it seemed to her that she read clear into the soul of him, and to behold it, through some befooling magic, as strong, tender, wise, and true, as his outward ap- pearance would have made an innocent stranger believe him; for he looked all these things; she admitted that much; and he had an air of distinction and resource beyond any she had ever known, even in the wild scramble for her kitten he had not lost it. So, for ten seconds, which may be a long time, she saw a man such as she had dreamed, and she did not believe her sight, because she had no desire to be as credulous as the others, to be as easily cheated as that poor Fanchon!
The luckless Tom found his own feet beautiful on the mountains, and, treading the heights with airy steps, appeared to himself wonderful and glorified--he was waltzing with Miss Betty He breathed the entrancing words to himself, over and over: it was true, he was waltzing with Miss Betty Carewe! Her glove lay warm and light within his own; his fingers clasped that ineffable lilac and white brocade waist. Sometimes her hair came within an inch of his cheek, and then he rose outright from the hilltops and floated in a golden mist. The glamour of which the Incroyable had planned to tell her some day, surrounded Tom, and it seemed to him that the whole world was covered with a beautiful light like a carpet, which was but the radiance of this adorable girl whom his gloves and coat-sleeve were permitted to touch. When the music stopped, they followed in the train of other couples seeking the coolness of out-of- doors for the interval, and Tom, in his soul, laughed at all other men with illimitable condescension.
"Stop here," she said, as they reached the open gate. He was walking out of it, his head in the air, and Miss Betty on his arm. Apparently, he would have walked straight across the State. It was the happiest moment he had ever known.
He wanted to say something wonderful to her; his speech should be like the music and glory and lire that was in him; therefore he was shocked to hear himself remarking, with an inanity of utterance that sickened him:
"Oh, here's the gate, isn't it?"
Her answer was a short laugh. "You mean you wish to persuade me that you had forgotten it was there?"
"I did not see it," he protested, lamentably.
"No?"
"I wasn't thinking of it."
"Indeed! You were `lost in thoughts of `--"
"Of you!" he said, before he could check himself.
"Yes?" Her tone was as quietly contemptuous as she could make it. "How very frank of you! May I ask: Are you convinced that speeches of that sort are always to a lady's liking?"
"No," he answered humbly, and hung his head. Then she threw the question at him abruptly:
"Was it you who came to sing in our garden?"
There was a long pause before a profound sigh came tremulously from the darkness, like a sad and tender confession. "Yes."
"I thought so!" she exclaimed. "Mrs. Tanberry thought it was someone else; but I knew that it was you."
"Yes, you are right," he said, quietly. "It was I. It was my only way to tell you what you know now."
"Of course!" She set it all aside with those two words and the slightest gesture of her hand. " It was a song made for another girl, I believe?" she asked lightly, and with an icy smile, inquired farther: "For the one-- the one before the last, I understand?"
