She would have to tell her mother she felt ill and go home, but she had not the strength to do this.

She felt crushed.

She went to the furthest end of the little drawing room and sank into a low chair.

Her light, transparent skirts rose like a cloud about her slender waist; one bare, thin, soft, girlish arm, hanging listlessly, was lost in the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan, and with rapid, short strokes fanned her burning face.

But while she looked like a butterfly, clinging to a blade of grass, and just about to open its rainbow wings for fresh flight, her heart ached with a horrible despair.