"Then I have still three weeks," said I lightly. "Will you dance with me for the rest of the evening?"
"Certainly not," she answered with decision. "But after the fifth dance from now, you will find me, Señor Carlyon, here"; and turning again to her partner, she was caught up into the whirl of dancers.
After the fifth dance I returned to that corner of the ballroom. I found Olivia waiting. But it was an Olivia whom I did not know. The sparkle and the freshness had gone out of her; fear and not kindness shone in her eyes.
Her face lit up for a moment when she saw me, and she stepped eagerly forward.
"Quick!" she said. "Somewhere where we shall be alone!"
Her hand trembled upon my arm. She walked quickly from the room, smiling as she went. She led me along a corridor into the garden of the house, a place of palms and white magnolias on the very edge of the upper town. She went without a word to the railings at the end of the garden, whence one looks straight down upon the lights of the lower town along the river bank. Then she turned. A beam of light from the windows shone upon her face. The smile had gone from it. Her lips shook.
"What has happened?" I asked.
She spoke in jerks.
"He came to me to-night.... He danced with me...."
"Who?" I asked.