“Yes.” Lily, glad again, turned wholly to Gerald, the music having stopped. “Mrs. Hawthorne told mother that if she would let me come I should be taken home in her own carriage, with all the furs around us and a hot water-box for our feet, so that we never could catch cold. Wasn’t it sweet of her? And we’ve both already had ices and cakes, before anybody else, because she said we must. Don’t you think she’s sweet, Gerald?”
“Sweet as honey,” he said.
“Oh, Gerald,”–Lily’s tone was fairly lamentable,–“have you seen the baskets of favors that are going to be given away by and by? There are roses of red silk, and lilies of white velvet, and chocolate cigars, and fans, and bonbonnières, and silver bangles! Then funny ones of little monkeys and ducks and things. And I have to go home willingly, cheerfully, promptly, at ten o’clock!”
“Lily, if any lady is so good and so misguided as to 127honor me with a favor, I will bring it to you in my pocket to-morrow or soon after, I promise.”
“What hour is it, Herr Fane?” asked Fräulein over Lily’s head.
Gerald drew out his watch and hesitated, sincerely sorry.
“To be exact, it is three minutes and three quarters to ten,” he said.
Lily’s mouth dropped open, and out of the small dark hollow one could fear for a second that a cry of protest or revolt might come; but the very next moment it was seen that Lily had returned to be the best child in the world and the most honorable.
“Good night, Gerald!” she said, with a wistfully willing, cheerful, ready face. “You won’t forget?”
He was left in the oval room, and as the dancers who had come in to occupy its seats seemed all to be in pairs, he remained aloof. He took the occasion to have a look at the panels, which he had not before seen, the tapestries, which were not tapestries, but paintings on rep. He remembered–the Fountain of Love, not Biblical.