that it was only the glamour of rank, wealth, and perhaps a glamour of the senses which had intoxicated her.
There was in his manner a certain familiarity, a certain freedom, when he came to claim her, which jarred on Elsie, and roused in her the first faint feeling of alarm. But this had vanished when he piloted her into the dance, and guided her swiftly, surely, and with a perfection of finish of style and movement which was very delightful to Elsie. She herself was one of Nature's dancers. She loved the exercise, and she danced as few women can who have not made it a profession. When the dance was over, he took her out into one of the canvas conservatories. "I have been all round," he said, "I know the quiet nooks. Here is one you'd never suspect." He pulled back a corner of the canvas, which was flapping loosely under an overhanging branch of palm leaves, and drew her through. They were in a little vine trellis, naked now, and with the moon shining through the interlacing boughs of an old Isabella grave vine, and at the end of the trellis was a small summer house, unlighted, except by one Japanese lantern. He led the girl, half shrinking, half wretched, half glad, to a bench in the summer house. Then he took her two hands, and drew her to him, leaning a little back himself, while he looked at her with bold admiring eyes.
"My own darling! You are so beautiful; and I love you so! If you knew how I watched the door this evening, and how my heart jumped when I saw the flash of those!" He placed a sacrilegious hand upon the girl's warm soft neck.
She shrank a little from his touch.
"You were glad that I wore them?"
"Glad! I told you what it meant—my dearest wish! Darling, you didn't hesitate. You knew what it meant?"
"I asked my mother if I should wear them," said Elsie, simply.
"You asked your mother! By Jove!" Lord Astar stroked his moustache. And then he laughed, and put his arm round Elsie's waist, and would have kissed her, but she eluded the caress.
