Rene de Ronville, remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt, went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little Adrienne Bourcier.

He would not be convinced.
"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before, you know, and the party was but put off.

I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I am yours, you can't deny that." "No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then added lightly, "Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that dance." He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said: "It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose." She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into one of her tantalising smiles.
"Do you imagine that ?" she demanded.
"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush.

"Have I no sense ?" "Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.
"You think so." "Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.
There was an awkward silence.
She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret had taught him.
The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents.

No grip is so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions.