The waltz was over, and I saw Guy and Flora disappear through the
curtained door of the conservatory. If there was one thing Mrs. Wallace
was prouder of than another, it was the arrangement of this sanctum.
Very justly so; for it had witnessed the commencement and happy
termination of more flirtations than half the ball-rooms in London put
together. When you got into one of those nooks, contrived in artful
recesses, shaded by magnolias, camellias, and the broad, thick-leaved
tropical plants, lighted dimly by lamps of many-colored glass, you felt
the recitation of some chapter in "the old tale so often told" a
necessity of the position, not a matter of choice. Against eyes you were
tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary
importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the
stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the
imparting of interesting information, deserves to be--overheard.
Flora sank down on a convenient _causeuse_, still panting slightly--not
from breathlessness, but past excitement--the ground-swell after the
storm.
"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so
nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my
step and pace so well.
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