"Yes," she answered, "I suppose so. I have known Lina Meredith all my life, or nearly, but I never thought her pretty until to-night. To-morrow we will call upon her at her own home. You may see for yourself how different she will appear."
"I shall be pleased to go—thank you," said Ronald Valchester. "Is Miss Meredith the only daughter?"
Violet looked at him surprised.
"Why, of course," she began, then stopped, and said deprecatingly: "I have, perhaps, done Lina an injustice in speaking of her as I have to you, Mr. Valchester. I thought you knew that she is an orphan. It isn't her fault that she must go shabby and neglected. She is poor, and has no one to love her."
Violet looked very pretty in the thoughtful student's eyes just then—much prettier than she had five minutes ago. As he clasped the little hand in the winding figures of the gay dance, he thought that the touch of womanly pity in her voice was very winning.
More than once he looked at the slender figure of Jaquelina, as it whirled past him lightly, with a new interest in his eyes. She had been simply a pretty, interesting girl to him before, in whose radiant face he had vaguely read something that prompted him to give her the passion-flowers.
Now the vibrating chord of sympathy in his nature had been touched by those simple words: "She has no one to love her."
When that dance was over and Violet had been claimed by another partner, he went up to Jaquelina.
"You have not danced with me yet," he said. "Will you give me the next dance, Miss Meredith?"
"You must excuse me, Mr. Valchester," she replied, with a smile, "I have promised the next dance to your friend, Mr. Earle."