Among her many perilous fascinations, have I ever mentioned her wonderful waltzing?  She was as untiring as an Alme; and when once fairly launched with a steerer who could do her justice, had a sway with her—­to use an Americanism—­like that of a clipper three points off the wind.

As I watched her, almost reclining in her partner’s powerful grasp, her lips moving incessantly, though audibly only to him, as her head leaned against his shoulder, I thought of the old Rhineland tradition of the Wilis; then the daughter of Herodias came into my mind; and then that scarcely less murderous danseuse, at whose many-twinkling feet they say the second Napoleon cast his frail life down.

If, in his assault on St. Anthony, the Evil One mingled no Terpsichorean temptation, be sure it was because the ancient man had no ear for music, I do not think that weapon was forgotten when Don Roderick, who had once been a courtly king, did battle through a long winter’s night with the phantasm of fair, sinful La Cava.

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.”

“Why should it be nearly the last?” Guy asked, contemplating the varying expression of her face and the somewhat careless pose of her magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes.

“On se range,” Flora answered, demurely.  “And the first step in the right direction will be to give up one’s favorite partners.”

He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced.

“Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

“Of course I do.  I could sketch your future so easily.  It will be so intensely respectable.  You will become a model country squire.  You will hunt a good deal, but never ride any more. (You must sell the Axeine, you know.) You will go to magistrates’ meetings regularly, and breed immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself.  That’s the worst of all.  I don’t like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan.”