Conventions
had nothing to do with it. It would not have mattered even if
you'd obviously thought I was a fool. You might have thought so,
you know."
"No, I mightn't," answered Robin. "There have been no Eton and
Oxford and amusements for me. This is my first party."
She rose as he had done and they stood for a second or so with their
eyes resting on each other's--each with a young smile quivering
into life which neither was conscious of. It was she who first
wakened and came back. He saw a tiny pulse flutter in her throat
and she lifted her hand with a delicate gesture.
"This dance was Lord Halwyn's and we've sat it out. We must go
back to the ball room."
"I--suppose--we must," he answered with slow reluctance--but he
could scarcely drag his eyes away from hers--even though he obeyed,
and they turned and went.
In the shining ball room the music rose and fell and swelled again
into ecstasy as he took her white young lightness in his arm and
they swayed and darted and swooped like things of the air--while
the old Duchess and Lord Coombe looked on almost unseeing and
talked in murmurs of Sarajevo.
THE END
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
The inflexible limitations of magazine space necessitated the
omission--in its serial form--of so large a portion of THE
HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE as to eliminate much of the charm
of characterization and the creation of atmosphere and background
which add so greatly to the power and picturesqueness of the
author's work.
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