"Remember you very well indeed!" he said, his graciousness more
earnest than any he had heretofore displayed. Isabel heard him and
laughed.

"But you don't, George!" she said. "You don't remember her yet,
though of course you will! Miss Morgan is from out of town, and I'm
afraid this is the first time you've ever seen her. You might take
her up to the dancing; I think you've pretty well done your duty here."

"Be d'lighted," George responded formally, and offered his arm, not
with a flourish, certainly, but with an impressiveness inspired partly
by the appearance of the person to whom he offered it, partly by his
being the hero of this fete, and partly by his youthfulness--for when
manners are new they are apt to be elaborate. The little beauty
entrusted her gloved fingers to his coat-sleeve, and they moved away
together.

Their progress was necessarily slow, and to George's mind it did not
lack stateliness. How could it? Musicians, hired especially for him,
were sitting in a grove of palms in the hall and now tenderly playing
"Oh, Promise Me" for his pleasuring; dozens and scores of flowers had
been brought to life and tended to this hour that they might sweeten
the air for him while they died; and the evanescent power that music
and floral scents hold over youth stirred his appreciation of strange,
beautiful qualities within his own bosom: he seemed to himself to be
mysteriously angelic, and about to do something which would overwhelm
the beautiful young stranger upon his arm.

Elderly people and middle-aged people moved away to let him pass with