"So much in such a little time!" she said, softly.
He smiled, answering the adoring look of her eyes with his own amorous glance, and in another few seconds they were part of the brilliant whirl of dancers now crowding the ball-room and swinging round in a blaze of colour and beauty to the somewhat hackneyed strains of the "Fruhlings Reigen." And as they floated and flew, the delight of their attractiveness to each other drew them closer together till the sense of separateness seemed lost and whelmed in a magnetic force of mutual comprehension.
When this waltz was finished she was claimed by many more partners, and danced till she was weary,—then, between two "extras," she went in search of Miss Leigh, whom she found sitting patiently in one of the great drawing-rooms, looking somewhat pale and tired.
"Oh, my godmother!" she exclaimed, running up to her. "I had forgotten how late it is getting!"
Miss Lavinia smiled cheerfully.
"Never mind, child!" she said. "You are young and ought to enjoy yourself. I am old, and hardly fit for these late assemblies—and how very late they are too! When I was a girl we never stayed beyond midnight—"
"And is it midnight now?" asked Innocent, amazed, turning to her partner, a young scion of the aristocracy, who looked as if he had not been to bed for a week.
He smiled simperingly, and glanced at his watch.
"It's nearly two o'clock," he said. "In fact it's tomorrow morning!"
Just then Jocelyn came up.