Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/46

 and left him. He strolled about for a few moments, then seated himself upon a bench in full view of the room he had just quitted. For ten long minutes he waited, as tranquilly as he might; which is as much as to say that he was restless to the extreme and vibrant with curiosity. For fifteen minutes or so longer he wriggled on the seat qf uncertainty, wondering if he was being played with,—made a fool of. A thought struck him like a shot: was she detaining him while sending for the police?

The essential idiocy of that conjecture became evident within a few minutes. The princess was but proving her inborn, feminine method of measuring time; she returned at last—flushed and breathless, more bewitching than he had imagined her, who had not ere this seen her in a good light

"Come, Colonel O'Rourke, if you please."

He was instantly at her side, offering his arm. She seemed to hesitate the merest fraction of a second, then lightly placed her fingers upon his sleeve, where they rested, flower-like. The man gazed upon them with all his soul in his eyes. His hand trembled to seize them—oh, already he was far gone! But the manner of Madame la Princesse kept him within bounds; its temperature was perceptibly lower than formerly.

For her part, she was choosing to ignore what he could not conceal—the devotion which her personality had so suddenly inspired in the breast of the young Irishman.

They re-entered the ballroom; now it was half deserted, and a facile way lay open to them on the floor that had been so crowded.

By an almost imperceptible pressure upon his arm the princess guided him across the room, and into a salon that was quite deserted.