When Anne descended the company was streaming toward the music
room, whence issued the rich summons of a full military band. She
manoeuvred so well that Lord Hunsdon led out Miss Ogilvy for the
first dance, and sat down beside Mrs. Nunn, hoping that Warner would
summon courage to take the empty chair beside her. Her pulses beat
high with excitement and delight in his triumph, and she longed to
show him recklessly for once the admiration and the faith she had
taken care to conceal under a correctly flattering manner. But Warner
stood talking with a group of men, and even could he have ignored a
sudden imperious beckoning of Lady Hunsdon's fan he would have been
too late. With one of those concerted impulses to which men no less
than women are subject, the young bloods of Bath House, the moment
they saw Anne Percy radiant in colour, with an even deeper blush and
brighter eyes than usual, determined that she and she alone should be
the belle of the evening. She had hardly seated herself when she was
surrounded, she was besieged for dances; and in spite of her protests
that she had never danced save with her governesses, she found herself
whirling about the room in the arm of Mr. Abergenny, and followed by
many an angry eye. Abergenny might be untitled and less of a "catch"
than Lord Hunsdon, but he had far more dash, manner, and address; he
possessed a fine property, if somewhat impaired by high living, and
was a man of note and fashion in London. His word alone had stamped
more than one ambitious beauty for good or ill, and this was not the
first time that he had intimated his entire approval of Miss Percy.
Anne guessed that his intentions were never serious, but he had amused
her more than the others, and since she must know the world, doubtless
she should be grateful for tutelage so able.
Although trembling and suffused with terrified blushes, all her old
shyness in possession, Mr. Abergenny was so admirable a partner, he
gave her so many courteous hints, he kept her so persistently in the
thick of the dancing, where critical eyes could hardly follow her,
that her confidence not only returned, but before she had completed
the circuit of the room three times she was vastly enjoying herself.
She danced round and square dances with her various admirers for the
next hour, and when the country dance was at its height she found
herself tripping alone between the long files with no return of
bashfulness and no less grace than Lady Mary herself; forgetting that
there could be no better preparation for grace in the ball-room than
years of free exercise out of doors.
She abandoned herself to the new and unanticipated pleasure, and not
only of dancing but of being the acknowledged belle of the night.
Beyond the intoxication of the moment nothing existed. Once indeed,
she met Warner's eyes, and they flashed with surprise and rage, but
she forgot him and danced until even her strong frame could stand no
more, and she went to bed with the dawn and slept till afternoon.