The man, Mr. Vincent, stood opposite her once again. Jane started when she saw him and then smiled, resolving to address him and compliment him on his work. She took two steps toward him, no more, before he abruptly turned and walked away. She knew that he had seen her—indeed, he had been staring at her when she emerged from her study of his work—and yet he had walked away as if she were not there. No: he had walked away with a clear desire to avoid her company.

Jane hoped she had not offended him by her curiosity into his methods, but he truly was the most accomplished glamourist she had yet encountered. He made her own not inconsiderable skills seem paltry and mean. Among the questions that Jane wished to ask Mr. Vincent, she was most curious about how long it had taken him to do the work in this room. While he did use physical paint as a foundation for his glamour, the amount of illusion piled and layered upon the room would have taken Jane weeks to create.

Satisfied with her viewing of the dining hall, and not anxious to chance further offense to Mr. Vincent, Jane followed the sounds of the music to the ballroom. There she found the company engaged in a quadrille.

Jane looked around for faces she knew. Mr. Dunkirk was dancing with Miss FitzCameron, who was smiling as if she wanted all the world to see the glamour masking her teeth. Such vanity, and yet she fooled no one save for Jane’s father. At the other end of the set, Melody danced with a young officer with a fine head of dark hair. He laughed, spinning her in the next step of the quadrille. The laugh gave Jane a jolt of recognition as she remembered seeing him in town walking with a young woman the day she went to Madame Beaulieu’s.

Jane watched her sister, who seemed to be enjoying herself enormously, and then caught sight of Miss Dunkirk. She was being escorted by Mr. McIntosh, an elderly Scotsman who still had a fine love of the dance. Miss Dunkirk did not seem cowed by his enthusiasm, which somewhat surprized Jane. The girl’s green velvet mantle shewed off her slender figure to advantage. Ringlets of hair escaped from under a bandeau of matching green and lay against her neck like a necklace of jet.

Working her way through the press of people, Jane made her way to where her mother and father stood on the sidelines. Mrs. Ellsworth leaned close and said, “Don’t they look fine! I daresay that Melody will capture the officer’s heart before the evening is out.”

“Melody could not fail to capture anyone’s heart.” Jane said and shifted her gaze to Mr. Dunkirk, wondering that he had given up the dance with her sister rather than retaining her hand for the next set. Or had Jane stayed in the dining hall longer than she intended?

“But this would be such a fine match, don’t you think?” Mrs. Ellsworth insisted.