"You will dance with me or at least speak to me afterward?" Winslow managed to ask, instinctively expecting refusal after the ordeal she had gone through.
"This is one of the nights I could not dance; in fact, I doubt if I ever shall again."
Winslow sought out the darkest corner of the porch, where he was yet within sound of her voice. Lighting a cigar, he gave himself over to an uninterrupted train of musing, while those within who missed him thought him merely escaping them after the manner of a man of the world, who, having been courted for a decade by maids, wives, and widows, prefers his own society.
After the final applause, which was unusually long and loud for such an audience, had ceased, Winslow threaded his way rapidly through the rooms in search of Incognita, as he called her to himself, but she was nowhere to be found.
"The excitement of her success was too much for the dear child," said Miss Emmy, taking his arm and switching him in the direction where he cared least to go.
"I've sent Nora home with her in the coupé, for she looked really overdone. Don't be so disappointed; you can go and inquire for her to-morrow."
When Winslow broke away from his hostess at last, he wondered what had happened to him. He had intended leaving in the morning if he had completed his inquiry. Well, he would sleep on it; some impressions lose their color the next day. But in the morning he resolved to telegraph his cousin and put off going at least until another to-morrow.