"Do you know, Miss Lambert, I have some very humble apologies to offer you for my involuntary rudeness. I can only urge that when I saw you at the races, I was so struck by your remarkable likeness to a very charming woman I knew long ago, that I really could not keep my eyes in order."
"You did not offend me," said Elsie, with a quick little sigh, and making a slight unconscious movement, as if to draw nearer Glynn. "I am glad I reminded you of some one you liked."
"I did not say I liked her, though she was charming," returned Deering, with a searching glance and a somewhat cynical smile.
Elsie did not reply; she looked wonderingly at him out of her great serious blue eyes, as if at some curious, dangerous creature.
"So I am to consider myself pardoned?" resumed Deering.
"I have nothing to forgive." Then turning to Glynn, she asked, "Do you think the fireworks will soon begin?"
"Not until it is considerably darker. I suppose we ought to go out to see them; we shall only have a very narrow view here."
"Yes, we can't possibly stay in this corner," exclaimed Deering, looking round impatiently.
"Oh, I fancy madame will make a move," said Vincent, who was hovering about in his character of sponsor to his aristocratic friend.
"I did not know you had so distinguished a circle of French acquaintances," resumed Deering, addressing Glynn, and glancing with slightly elevated eyebrows towards Madame Davilliers and her friends. The glance caught that lady's attention, and induced her to turn the fire of her conversation upon him. To which Deering replied, with the assistance of Miss Lambert and Glynn. On her own account Elsie said very little, and seemed to have lost the brightness that animated her before and during dinner.