thirty.  I turned again to the table, and carelessly reached out for a pair of dainty, pale tan-colored gloves.  Then I seized them eagerly and brushed them against my face; I had found the odor.  The gloves were perfumed.  They had been worn for the first time to the reception, and had been thrown there into a plate of costly percelain, to await her ladyship’s pleasure and do further and final service at the ball.  They bore the imprint of her dainty fingers, and they were hardly cold from the touch and the warmth of her pretty white hands.  They seemed, as they rested there, like something human; and if they had reached out toward me, or even spoken a word of explanation regarding their highly perfumed selves, I should indeed have been delighted, but neither surprised nor dismayed.

But while the gloves did not speak, did not move, something else made mute appeal.  Tossed into that same beautiful plate, hidden at first by the gloves, was a bunch, a very small bunch of Russian violets.  Evidently they had been worn to the reception, and while I was wondering if she would wear them to the ball I heard a light step, the rustle of silken skirts, and I knew that my wait was ended.

She looked resplendent in evening dress, and swept toward me with the grace, the charm, the ease of a woman of many seasons instead of one hardly half finished.

“Here are your gloves,” I said.  She quickly drew them on and made them fast with almost a single movement.

“And your Russian violets,” I added.  She looked at them hesitatingly, but slightly shrugged her shoulders, that were bare and gleamed in the half glow of lamp and fire like moonlight on silvered meadow, and, turning, looked up at me and said: 

“I am ready at last; pray pardon my long delay.”

While we were driving to the ball I asked her about the perfumed gloves with an odor like sandal-wood or like ottar of roses.  She said they had been sent her from Paris, but they were in all the shops, were pleasant, but not rare.  She said nothing about the violets, nor did I mention them again.  Yielding to an impulse, I had before we left the house thrust them into my waistcoat pocket when she had turned to take up the flowing silk of her train.

All the evening I could catch the odor of those Russian violets that had been lightly worn, indifferently cast aside, and smothered by those artificial creatures, the perfumed gloves, for they were jealous of the natural fragrance and would have killed it if they could.

All the evening I found myself nervously looking about for Russian violets, but there were none to be seen.  Miss Bolton wore violets, but not the deep, dark, wide and sad-eyed violet known as the Russian.

We had a curious talk, driving home, about the responsibility of human action—­hardly the kind of conversation for “after the ball.”  Miss Caddington astonished me by saying that she considered it useless to strive against the current of that which is called “Destiny;” that it was better to yield gracefully than to awkwardly, unsuccessfully struggle against the tide.  I was deeply interested, and asked her what she meant, what association of ideas had produced the speech.