"Yes,—no,—pretty well. Are you coming in?"
They are again in front of the house, and near the steps that lead to the conservatory.
"Not just yet, I think."
"Then I fear I must leave you. I am engaged for this dance."
So, for the first time, these two part coldly. The old man goes slowly, moodily, up and down the gravelled path beneath the brilliant moon, that—
"From her clouded veil soft gliding,
Lifts her silvery lamp on high,"
and thinks of many things in a humor more sad than bitter; while the young man, with angry brow and lips compressed, goes swiftly onward to the house.
As he regains the ball-room, the remembrance of the little partner he has come to claim rushes back upon him pleasantly, and serves to dissipate the gloomy and somewhat indignant thoughts that have been oppressing him. But where is she? He looks anxiously around; and, after five minutes' fruitless search, lo! there are her eyes smiling out at him from the arms of a gay and (doubtless) gallant plunger.
The next instant she is gone; but he follows her slight form with eager glance, and at length crosses the room to where she is now standing with her soldier. As he does so he flings from him all tormenting thoughts, forgetting—as it is his nature to do—the possible misery of the future in the certain happiness of the present.
"The next is ours, is it not?" he says; and she smiles at him, and—can it be?—willingly transfers her hand from the heavy's arm to his; and then they dance; and presently he takes her down to the Peytons' carriage and puts her carefully into it, and presses her hand, I think, ever so slightly, and then drives home, beneath the silent stars, with an odd sensation at his heart—half pain, half pleasure—he has never felt before.