"Well?" the girl demanded harshly.

"I thought I saw you," he commented blandly, advancing a pace and so coming face to face with the bristling little Mephistophelean figure, which he had endeavoured to ignore.

"My dance, I believe," he added a trace more brusquely, over the little man's head.

"I must ask you to excuse me," said the girl coldly.

"You don't care to dance again to-night?"

"Thank you—no."

"Then I will give myself the pleasure of sitting it out with you."

"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Bayard," she returned, consistently inflexible.

He hesitated. "Do I understand you're ready for me to take you home?"

"You're to understand that I will neither dance nor sit out the dance with you—and that I don't wish to be disturbed."