Part One Chapter 12 The Wine of the Gods

The rink was ablaze with fairy-lights under the starry sky. Rose de Vigne, exquisitely fair in ruby velvet and ermine furs paused on the verandah, looking pensively forth.

Very beautiful she looked standing there, and Captain Brent of the Sappers striding forth with his skates jingling in his hand stopped as one compelled.

"Are you waiting for someone, Miss de Vigne? Or may I escort you?"

She looked at him with a faint smile as if in pity for his disappointment. "Too late, I am afraid, Captain Brent. I have promised Sir Eustace to skate with him."

"Who?" Brent glanced towards the rink. "Why, he's down there already dancing about with your little cousin. That's her laugh. Don't you hear it?"

Dinah's laugh, clear and ringing, came to them on the still air. Rose's slim figure stiffened very slightly, barely perceptibly, at the sound. "Sir Eustace has forgotten his engagement," she said icily. "Yes, Captain Brent, I will come with you."

"Good business!" he said heartily. "It's a glorious night. Somebody said there was a change coming; but I don't believe it. Maddening if a thaw comes before the luging competition. The run is just perfection now. I'm going up there presently. It's glorious by moonlight."

He chattered inconsequently on, happy in the fact that he had secured the prettiest girl in the hotel for his partner, and not in the least disturbed by any lack of response on her part. To skate with her hand in hand was the utmost height of his ambition just then, his brain not being of a particularly aspiring order.