He handed her the favour. She placed it amongst the collection at the back of her chair and rose, and they danced. Was it dancing? The music throbbed; nay, the musicians seemed suddenly to have been carried out of themselves, and played as they had not played before. Her veins were filled with pulsing fire as she was swung, guided, carried out of herself by the extraordinary virility of the man who held her. She had tasted mastery.
"Thank you," she faltered, as they came around the second time to her seat.
He released her.
"I stayed to dance with you," he said. "I had to await my opportunity."
"It was kind of you to remember me," she replied, as she went off with
Mr. Carrington.
A moment later she saw him bidding good night to his hostess. His face, she thought, had not lost that strange look of determination that she recalled. And yet—how account for his recklessness?
"Rum chap, Chiltern," remarked Carrington. "He might be almost anything, if he only knew it."
In the morning, when she awoke, her eye fell on the cotillon favours scattered over the lounge. One amongst them stood out—a silver-mounted pin-cushion. Honora arose, picked it up contemplatively, stared at it awhile, and smiled. Then she turned to her window, breathing in the perfumes, gazing out through the horse-chestnut leaves at the green, shadow-dappled lawn below.
On her breakfast tray, amidst some invitations, was a letter from her. uncle. This she opened first.
"Dear Honora," he wrote, "amongst your father's papers, which have been in my possession since his death, was a certificate for three hundred shares in a land company. He bought them for very little, and I had always thought them worthless. It turns out that these holdings are in a part of the state of Texas that is now being developed; on the advice of Mr. Isham and others I have accepted an offer of thirty dollars a share, and I enclose a draft on New York for nine thousand dollars. I need not dwell upon the pleasure it is for me to send you this legacy from your father. And I shall only add the counsel of an old uncle, to invest this money by your husband's advice in some safe securities." . . .