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308 Duchesse de Melun to ask him questions about me. And I 'd rather not think about that possibility, or anything else disagreeable, to spoil this heavenly waltz."

"You can dance a little, can't you?" said Jack, in a tone and with a look that made the words better than any compliment any other man had ever paid me on my dancing, though I 'd been likened to feathers, and vine-tendrils, and various poetically airy things.

"You are n't so bad yourself, brother," I retorted, in the same tone. "Our steps suit, don't they?"

He muttered something, which sounded like "Just a little better than anything else on earth, that 's all"; but of course it could n't really have been what my ears tried to make my vanity believe.

When we stopped—which we did n't do while there was music to go on with—I was conscious that people were looking at us, and nobody with more interest than the Duchesse de Melun. I glanced hastily away before my eye had quite caught hers; but no female thing needs to give a whole eye to what is going on around her. I knew, although my back was soon turned in her direction, that the Duchesse de Melun was talking to Lady Turnour, and I guessed the subject of the conversation. Thank goodness, my mistress's mind had never compassed more than a misleading "Elise," and thank goodness, also, many of the great folk were preparing to leave us humble ones to ourselves, now that their condescension had been proved in the first dance. Would the duchess go? Yes—oh joy!—she gets up from her seat. She moves toward the door. Lady Turnour has risen too, but sits down again, lured by the proximity of a princess. All will be