A band was stationed in one of the rooms which opened upon the terrace, and the music sounded pleasantly in the still air.
"And so you are always successful!" said the man who had spoken before to the lady, who leaned upon the balcony, with light from within just tingeing the satin of her dress, and the faint light of the moon and stars lending her grace and beauty a softened radiance which well became them, though somewhat foreign to them. "I believe that firmly. Indeed, how could you fail? I cannot fancy you associated with defeat. I cannot fancy anything but triumph for such a Venus Victrix as you are!"
"You say very pretty things," was the slightly contemptuous answer, "and you say them very well. But I think I am a little tired of them, among other things. You see, I have heard so many of them, ever since I can remember. In fact, I have eaten bonbons of every kind, of all the colours, as they say in Paris, and they pall upon my taste now."
"You are not easily understood," said her companion; "but you are the most enchanting of enigmas."
"Again!" she said, and held up an ungloved hand, on which jewels shone in the dim mixed light.
"Yes, again and again!" he replied, and he drew nearer to her, and spoke eagerly, earnestly, in low fervent tones. She did not shrink from him; she listened, with her arms wrapped in her lace mantle, resting upon the balcony, the long black eyelashes shading her eyes, and the head, with the scarlet flower decking it, bent--not in timidity, but in attentive thought. The man leaned with his back against the balcony and his face turned partly towards her, partly towards the open windows, through which the light was shining. The lady listened, but rarely uttered a word. It was a story, a narrative of some kind, which her companion was telling, and it evidently interested her.
They were alone. The rooms within filled, and emptied, and filled again, and people rambled about them, went out upon the terrace and into the gardens; but no one intruded upon the tête-á-tête upon the balcony.
A momentary pause in the earnest, passionate flow of her companion's speech caused the lady to change her position and look up at him. "What is it?" she said.
"Nothing. Dallas passed by one of the windows just now, and I thought he might have seen me. He evidently did not, for he's just the blundering fool to have come out here to us if he had. It never would occur to him that he could be in any one's way."
There was an exasperation in his tone which surprised the lady. But she said, calmly, "I told you I thought him a booby." She resumed her former position, and as she did so the scarlet flower fell from her hair over the parapet. Her companion did not notice the accident, owing to his position. She leaned a little more forward to see where the flower had fallen. A lady, who had, no doubt, been passing along the terrace under the balcony at the moment, had picked it up. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge saw the blossom with the deep red colour in the lady's hand as she walked rapidly away, and was lost to sight at the end of the terrace.