I looked up, and caught her eyes upon me lighted with a rare smile.
"Do you return it to me without your name upon it?" she asked.
"May I have the honour?" I murmured.
"What is a ball for, but dancing?" she smiled. "But if you write your name there it will be a sign and token."
"Of what?" I asked stupidly.
"Of much that my dear little friend Mademoiselle Broumoff tells me she has said to you to-night."
"What is a ball for, but dancing?" I repeated her words as I took the card and wrote my initials against a waltz. "It will make the dance memorable to me," I added, under my breath.
"I shall read it for one thing as a token that you have acquitted me of all responsibility for the scene at General Kolfort's house."
"There was no need for any token of that, Princess," I replied, beginning to shake off my paralysing nervousness.
"And of the rest?"
"That I desire nothing better than to be enrolled among your friends." I spoke from my heart then, and the words pleased her.
"There may be many dangers, and more difficulties."
"I am prepared for both—if I can serve you." I looked straight at her for the first time, and her eyes fell.
"I could have no more welcome friend," she said softly.
This time the pause that followed was due as much to her embarrassment as to mine, and I noted this with a touch of delight.
