"Ah!" exclaims Dora, who now knows all she had wanted to know.
"But you must not tell me you have no dances left for me," says Adrian gayly. "Come, let me see your card." He looks at it, and finds it indeed full. "I am an unfortunate," he adds.
"I think," says Dora, with the prettiest hesitation, "if you are sure it would not be an unkind thing to do, I could scratch out this name"--pointing to her partner's for the coming dance.
"I am not sure at all," responds Sir Adrian, laughing. "I am positive it will be awfully unkind of you to deprive any fellow of your society; but be unkind, and scratch him out for my sake."
He speaks lightly, but her heart beats high with hope.
"For your sake," she repeats softly drawing her pencil across the name written on her programme and substituting his.
"But you will give me more than this one dance?" queries Adrian. "Is there nobody else you can condemn to misery out of all that list?"
"You are insatiable," she returns, blushing, and growing confused. "But you shall have it all your own way. Here"--giving him her card--"take what waltzes you will." She waltzes to perfection, and she knows it.
"Then this, and this, and this," says Adrian, striking out three names on her card, after which they move away together and mingle with the other dancers.
In the meantime, Florence growing fatigued, or disinclined to dance longer with Dynecourt, stops abruptly near the door of a conservatory, and, leaning against the framework, gazes with listless interest at the busy scene around.
"You are tired. Will you rest for awhile?" asks Arthur politely; and, as she bends her head in cold consent, he leads her to a cushioned seat that is placed almost opposite to the door-way, and from which the ball-room and what is passing within it are distinctly visible.
Sinking down amongst the blue-satin cushions of the seat he has pointed out to her, Florence sighs softly, and lets her thoughts run, half sadly, half gladly, upon her late interview with Sir Adrian. At least, if he has guessed her secret, she knows now that he does not despise her. There was no trace of contempt in the gentleness, the tenderness of his manner. And how kindly he had told her of the intended change in his life! "Their paths would lie far asunder for the future," he had said, or something tantamount to that. He spoke no doubt of his coming marriage.