“Do you return it to me without your name upon it?” she asked.
“May I have the honour?” I murmured.
“What is a ball for, but dancing?” she smiled. “But if you write your name there it will be a sign and token.”
“Of what?” I asked stupidly.
“Of much that my dear little friend Mademoiselle Broumoff tells me she has said to you to-night.”
“What is a ball for, but dancing?” I repeated her words as I took the card and wrote my initials against a waltz. “It will make the dance memorable to me,” I added, under my breath.
“I shall read it for one thing as a token that you have acquitted me of all responsibility for the scene at General Kolfort’s house.”
“There was no need for any token of that, Princess,” I replied, beginning to shake off my paralysing nervousness.
“And of the rest?”
“That I desire nothing better than to be enrolled among your friends.” I spoke from my heart then, and the words pleased her.