Then reality took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering out the irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he was awaiting, what expecting, Heaven alone knew.
And after a while he found himself in the ballroom.
The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful people, friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among these bright, fresh faces--amid this animated throng, constantly increased by the arrival of others, he started to find his hostess, now lost to sight in the breezy circle of silk and lace setting in from the stairs.
He heard names announced which meant nothing to him, which stirred no memory; names which sounded vaguely familiar; names which caused him to turn quickly--but seldom were the faces as familiar as the names.
He said to a girl, behind whose chair he was standing: "All the younger brothers and sisters are coming here to confound me; I hear a Miss Innis announced, but it turns out to be her younger sister--" "By the way, do you know my name ?" she asked.
"No," he said frankly, "do you know mine ?" "Of course, I do; I listened breathlessly when somebody presented you wholesale at your sister's the other day.

I'm Rosamund Fane.

You might as well be instructed because you're to take me in at the Orchils' next Thursday night, I believe." "Rosamund Fane," he repeated coolly.

"I wonder how we've avoided each other so consistently this winter?
I never before had a good view of you, though I heard you talking to young Innis at dinner.

And yet," he added, smiling, "if I had been instructed to look around and select somebody named Rosamund, I certainly should have decided on you." "A compliment ?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows.
"Ask yourself," he said.
"I do; and I get snubbed." And, smiling still, he said: "Do you know the most mischievous air that Schubert ever worried us with ?" "'Rosamund,'" she said; "and--thank you, Captain Selwyn." She had coloured to the hair.
"'Rosamund,'" he nodded carelessly--"the most mischievous of melodies--" He stopped short, then coolly resumed: "That mischievous quality is largely a matter of accident, I fancy.