"There was no time.

But"-- and she lowered her voice--"he wants to speak to me alone presently.

I'm going to him in the library after this dance." She passed on, and Mrs.Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously.

Wreathing her face with social smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment quite forget that he was an old man.

Impetuous youth itself never felt a keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him--not the tender glow of love.