"Officer and gentleman," she smiled.

The chance compliment came to me like a blow. I was not an officer. I
was masking, mumming, I, John Cowles, who had no right. Once more,
whither was my folly carrying me? Suddenly I felt saddened.

"I shall call you The Sorrowful Knight," chided my fair companion."

"Quite as well as any name, my very good friend."

"I am not your friend."

"No, and indeed, perhaps, never may be."

Her spirit caught the chill of this, and at once she motioned the edge
of the floor.

"Now I must go," she said. "There are very many to whom I am promised."
I looked at her and could very well believe the truth of that. Many
things revolved in my mind. I wondered whether if after all Kitty had
had her way; wondered if this was the mysterious Ellen, and if after all
she had also had her way! Ah, I had fallen easily!

"Sir Sorrowful," she said, "take me back." She extended a little hand
and a round arm, whose beauty I could fully catch. The long
mousquetaires of later days were then not known, but her hands stood
perfectly the trying test of white kids that ended short at the wrist.

Reluctantly I moved away with her from the merry throng upon the
pavilion floor. At the edge of the better lighted circle she paused for