keep to the subject which he felt was appropriate to the occasion, he preferred not to talk at all. 

Miss Forster treated him in that respect quite badly. When he tried to make one of his orthodox remarks, which were meant to be compliments, she ignored him utterly. She not only said things which worried him--to him it always was a labour to find an answer to a remark that was unexpected--she asked him questions which puzzled him still more, questions which he felt that she had no right to ask; particularly of a man in the middle of a dance. 

When he had quitted her, before seeking his next partner, he unburdened himself to his friend, Anthony Dodwell. 

"She's a top-hole dancer, Miss Forster, and as pretty as paint, but when it comes to asking a man if he likes liars I draw the line." 

"Did she ask you if you liked liars?" 

"She asked me much worse things than that. She was just asking me, when I hooked it, what I thought was the most shameful way in which a man could treat a friend. If I hadn't hooked it, I don't know what she wouldn't have asked me next; she's taken the stiffening out of my collar, talking to a man like that, between a two-step and a waltz." 

When his friend had left him, Dodwell advanced to the lady of whom they had been speaking. 

"May I have the pleasure of a dance, Miss Forster?" 

She had her hand on the arm of the partner who was about to bear her off; looking Captain Dodwell up and down in a fashion which, to say the least, was marked, she said, in a tone of voice which was clearly audible to those around: 

"In any case, Captain Dodwell, you would have been too late." She looked him straight in the face, then she turned to her partner. "Will you please take me away?" 

It was not strange that, as the pair moved off, Anthony Dodwell did not look happy; if she had flicked a whip in his face her intention could hardly have been plainer. He was conscious that while there were smiles on some of the faces about him, and while some observed him with curious eyes, there were others who kept their eyes carefully averted. On the whole, he carried the thing off uncommonly well. He strolled away, and presently was dancing with a lady whose charms were not so obvious as they possibly once had been. While he danced he was saying things to himself which would have 

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