Vanderlyn laughed. 'Oh, come, you are too hard on him. All men cannot be as slender or as tastefully dressed as your father.'

Theo shrugged delicately. 'Listen,' she cried. 'There comes that slow measure. Will you show me once more how to do the reverse?'

Vanderlyn, nothing loath, slipped his arm around her slim waist and they pirouetted gaily down the room.

When the party dispersed at one, the dancers were disappointed, but the card-players had had enough. The du Pont brothers had won nearly a hundred dollars at loo, and were well pleased.

Hamilton, under his wife's minatory eye, had filled in at a whist table, outwardly courteous and inwardly seething. His losses were insignificant, yet, even had he won as much as the du Ponts, he would not have enjoyed the evening. He might have wrested a twisted pleasure from playing against Burr; it would at least have kept him from boredom. But Burr never gambled. One of his maddening affectations, Hamilton considered it. A refusal to risk paltry sums of money when he delighted in risking other people's fortunes—more than their fortunes, their ideals.

Hamilton hurried his wife and daughter's departure, cutting short their polite farewells.

The others followed in a leisurely manner. There were pretty speeches praising the food, the wine, the music, and felicitating Theodosia again upon her birthday.

She stood beside her father in the great hallway, and many of the guests were struck by the resemblance between them. The brilliance of their smiles that uncovered identical rows of perfect white teeth, a brilliance that, though it was not entirely spontaneous, yet had a heart-warming quality which sprang from an interest in people and a desire to please them.

'It has given us the greatest pleasure to have you with us,' said Aaron, kissing Mrs. Jay's hand.

'Indeed, ma'am, we have been much honored by your company,' said Theo, and her voice, with its caressing breathless quality, sounded as much like her father's as it is possible for the voice of a seventeen-year-old girl to resemble that of a man of forty-four.

Alexis opened and shut the front door a score of times, until Theo, thinking them all gone, at last turned with a tired and happy sigh to Aaron.

It was then that she saw with exasperation that Joseph Alston still remained, half-hidden by the shadow of the stairs.

Aaron also discovered their lingering guest and advanced to him. 'I trust you have enjoyed your evening, Mr. Alston. It was kind of you to come. Perhaps you will place me still further in your debt and join me in a nightcap?'

Alston shook his head. 'I—I must be going'. But he didn't go, he stared at Theodosia instead.