Pleasant divertingly sharp romance. A handsome lieutenant of artillery decides to be kind to a young woman sitting alone at a ball - but in the course of a tete-a-tete she so charms him that he proposes and she accepts. He spends the rest of the night regretting his impulse, she dancing with others, until she reveals she accepted his proposal to teach him care and discretion, and releases him from the engagement. (PB)