I have promised this redowa to Mr.Sardonyx." Mr.Ingelow, in profound silence, led Miss Dane back to the ball-room, where they found the elegant lawyer searching for his partner.
"I thought you had forgotten me, Miss Dane," he said, taking her off at once.
"Impossible, Mr.Sardonyx," laughed Mollie.

"So sorry to have kept you waiting; but better late than never." That dance was the old story over again.

At its close the lawyer was so bewitched that he hardly knew whether he stood on his head or heels.
"It is coming!" thought wicked Mollie, looking sideways at him, "and only wants a proper place to come in." Aloud: "It is so warm here--I feel quite faint, really.

Suppose we step out on the piazza a moment ?" An instant later and they emerged through the drawing-room window to the piazza, Mollie wrapped in a scarlet shawl, along which her bright curls waved like sunshine.

The night was still, warm, and moonlight; the twinkling lights of the great city shone like a shower of stars.
And here, for the third time that eventful night, Mollie Dane listened to an ardent avowal of love.