The time arrives. “It is a waltz, I think,” Miss Larkins doubtfully observes, when I present myself. “Do you waltz? If not, Captain Bailey⁠—”

But I do waltz (pretty well, too, as it happens), and I take Miss Larkins out. I take her sternly from the side of Captain Bailey. He is wretched, I have no doubt; but he is nothing to me. I have been wretched, too. I waltz with the eldest Miss Larkins! I don’t know where, among whom, or how long. I only know that I swim about in space, with a blue angel, in a state of blissful delirium, until I find myself alone with her in a little room, resting on a sofa. She admires a flower (pink camellia japonica, price half-a-crown), in my buttonhole. I give it her, and say:

“I ask an inestimable price for it, Miss Larkins.”

“Indeed! What is that?” returns Miss Larkins.

“A flower of yours, that I may treasure it as a miser does gold.”

“You’re a bold boy,” says Miss Larkins. “There.”