"I couldn't help it--I was engaged. A man in his own house has always
a bad time of it looking after the impossible people," says Adrian
evasively.

"Poor Florence! Is she so very impossible?" asks Dora, laughing, but
pretending to reproach him.

"I was not speaking of Miss Delmaine," says Adrian, flushing hotly. "She
is the least impossible person I ever met. It is a privilege to pass
one's time with her."

"Yet it is with her you have passed the last hour that you hint has
been devoted to bores," returns Dora quietly. This is a mere feeler,
but she throws it out with such an air of certainty that Sir Adrian is
completely deceived, and believes her acquainted with his _tête-à-tête_
with Florence in the dimly lit anteroom.

"Well," he admits, coloring again, "your cousin was rather upset by the
acting, I think, and I just stayed with her until she felt equal to
joining us all again."

"Ah!" exclaims Dora, who now knows all she had wanted to know.

"But you must not tell me you have no dances left for me," says Adrian
gayly. "Come, let me see your card." He looks at it, and finds it indeed
full. "I am an unfortunate," he adds.

"I think," says Dora, with the prettiest hesitation, "if you are
sure it would not be an unkind thing to do, I could scratch out this
name"--pointing to her partner's for the coming dance.