Throwing off, then, the consciousness that had troubled him, he laughed and chatted with her till his words or the wine brought a warm flush into her creamy skin, and again and again he received a languishing look from the large dark eyes—a look that would have made some men turn giddy, but which only made Glen smile.
The party at last arose and began to file back into the brilliantly-lit saloons, the band having now been stationed in the flower-filled hall, and an improvised dance commenced, a couple beginning to turn to the strains of one of Gungl’s waltzes, and a dozen more following suit, agitating the perfumed air, and filling it with the scintillations of jewels.
They passed from the great marquee into the hall, the strains of the waltz making Glen long to go to Marie and ask her to be his partner for that dance.
He was thinking this when he was brought back to himself by the low, sweet voice of Clotilde.
“You are distrait,” she said half reproachfully.
“Yes. I was thinking of the music,” he said. “I want a waltz.”
“No, no,” she said hurriedly; and she pressed his arm. “I must not dance to-night. Take me in this way.”
She pointed to a door and they passed through into the great conservatory, softly lit up by tinted globes placed amidst the flowers and foliage of the rich exotics that filled the place. There was a delicious calm there, and the air was fragrant with the cloying scents of flowers; musical with the tinkle of falling water as a jet flashed in many-tinted drops and sparkled back into a fern-hung basin; while as if from a distance came the softened strains of the voluptuous waltz.
It was a place and a time to stir the pulses of an anchorite, and yet Glen hardly seemed to heed the beautiful woman who hung heavily and more heavily upon his arm, till he said suddenly—
“Is not this the way?”