Poor Mildred! higher than ever above her head bloomed that “blue rose” she longed to pluck.  Would she ever reach it after all her striving, even to gather one poor leaf, one withered petal?  The path which led to it was very hard to climb, and below the breakers boiled.  Would it, after all, be her fate to fall, down into that gulf of which the sorrowful waters could bring neither death nor forgetfulness?

And so Christmas came and went.

One day, when they were all sitting in the drawing-room, some eight weeks after the Bellamys had left, and Mildred was letting her mind run on such thoughts as these, Arthur, who had been reading a novel, got up and opened the folding-doors at the end of the room which separated it from the second drawing-room, and also the further doors between that room and the dining-room.  Then he returned, and, standing at the top of the big drawing-room, took a bird’s-eye view of the whole suite.

“What are you doing, Arthur?”

“I am reflecting, Mildred, that, with such a suite of apartments at your command, it is a sin and a shame not to give a ball.”

“I will give a ball, if you like, Arthur.  Will you dance with me if I do?”

“How many times?” he said, laughing.

“Well, I will be moderate—­three times.  Let me see—­the first waltz, the waltz before supper, and the last galop.”

“You will dance me off my head.  It is dangerous to waltz with any one so pretty,” he said, in that bantering tone he often took with her, and which aggravated her intensely.

“It is more likely that my own head will suffer, as I dance so rarely.  Then, that is a bargain?”

“Certainly.”

“Dear me, Mildred, how silly you are; you are like a schoolgirl!” said Miss Terry.

“Agatha is put out because you do not offer to dance three times with her.”

“Oh! but I will, though, if she likes; three quadrilles.”

And so the matter passed off in mutual badinage; but Mildred did not forget her intention.  On the contrary, “society” at Madeira was soon profoundly agitated by the intelligence that the lady Croesus, Mrs. Carr, was about to give a magnificent ball, and so ill-natured—­or, rather, so given to jumping to conclusions—­is society, that it was freely said it was in order to celebrate her engagement to Arthur Heigham.  Arthur heard nothing of this; one is always the last to hear things about oneself.  Mildred knew of it, however, but, whether from indifference or from some hidden motive, she neither took any steps to contradict it herself, nor would she allow Miss Terry to do so.

“Nonsense,” she said; “let them talk.  To contradict such things only makes people believe them the more.  Mind now, Agatha, not a word of this to Mr. Heigham; it would put him out.”

“Well, Mildred, I should have thought that you would be put out too.”

“I!—­oh, no!  Worse things might happen,” and she shrugged her shoulders.