"Thinkest thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the grassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are, who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's son,
And sting the soul."
"Oh, there you are," cries he jovially. "Been looking for you
everywhere. The music has begun; first dance just forming. Gay and
lively quadrille, you know--country ball wouldn't know itself without a
beginning like that. Come; come on."
Nothing can exceed his _bonhomie_. He tucks her hand in the most
delightfully genial, appropriative fashion under his arm, and with a
beaming nod to Mr. Browne (he never forgets to be civil to anybody)
hurries Joyce out of the room, leaving the astute Dicky gazing after him
with mingled feelings in his eye.
"Deuce and all of a smart chap," says Mr. Browne to himself slowly. "But
he'll fall through some day for all that, I shouldn't wonder."
Meantime Mr. Beauclerk is still carrying on a charming recitative.
"_Such a bore!_" he is saying, with heartfelt disgust in his tone. It is
really wonderful how he can _always_ do it. There is never a moment when
he flags. He is for ever up to time as it were, and equal to the
occasion. "I'm afraid you rather misunderstood me just now, when I said
I'd been looking for you--but the fact is, Browne's such an ass, if he
knew we had made an appointment to meet in the library, he'd have brayed
the whole affair to any and every one."
"Was there an appointment?" says Miss Kavanagh, who is feeling a little
unsettled--a little angry with herself perhaps.
"No--no," with a delightful acceptation of her rebuke. "You are right as
ever. I was wrong. But then, you see, it gave me a sort of joy to
believe that our light allusion to a possible happy half-hour before the
turmoil of the dance began might mean something _more_--something----Ah!
well never mind! Men are vain creatures; and after all it would have
been a happy half-hour to me _only_!"
"Would it?" says she with a curious glance at him.
"_You_ know that!" says he, with the full and earnest glance he can turn
on at a second's notice without the slightest injury to heart or mind.
"I don't indeed."
"Oh well, you haven't time to think about it perhaps. I found you very
fully occupied when--at last--I was able to get to the library. Browne
we all know is a very--er--lively companion--if rather wanting in the
higher virtues."
"'_At last_,'" says she quoting his words. She turns suddenly and looks
at him, a world of inquiry in her dark eyes. "I hate pretence," says she
curtly, throwing up her young head with a haughty movement. "You said
you would be in the library at such an hour, and though I did not
_promise_ to meet you there, still, as I happened to be dressed earlier
than I believed possible, I came down, and you----? Where were you?"
There is a touch of imperiousness in that last question that augurs
badly for a false wooer; but the imperiousness suits her. With her
pretty chin uptilted, and that little scornful curve upon her lips, and
her lovely eyes ablaze, she looks indeed "a thing of beauty." Beauclerk
regards her with distinct approbation. After all--had she even _half_
the money that the heiress possesses, _what_ a wife she would make. And
it isn't decided yet one way or the other; sometimes Fate is kind. The
day may come when this delectable creature may fall to his portion.
"I can see you are thinking hard things of me," says he reproachfully;
"but you little know how I have been passing the time I had so been
looking forward to. Time to be passed with _you_. That old Lady
Blake--she _would_ keep me maundering to her about that son of hers in
the Mauritius; _you_ know he and I were at St. Petersburg together. I
couldn't get away. You blame me--but what was I to do? An old
woman--unhappy----"
"Oh no. You were _right_," says Joyce quickly. How good he is after all,
and how unjustly she had been thinking of him. So kind, so careful of
the feelings of a tiresome old woman. How few men are like him. How few
would so far sacrifice themselves.
"Ah, you see it like that!" says, Mr. Beauclerk, not triumphantly, but
so modestly that the girl's heart goes out to him even more. How
_generous_ he is! Not a word of rebuke to her for her vile suspicion of
him.
"Why you put me into good spirits again," says he laughing gaily. "We
must make haste, I fear, if we would save the first dance."
"Oh yes--come," says Joyce going quickly forward. Evidently he is going
to ask her for the first dance! That _shows_ that he prefers her to----
"I'm so glad you have been able to sympathize with me about my last
disappointment," says Beauclerk. "If you hadn't--if you had had even one
hard thought of me, I don't know _how_ I should have been able to endure
what still lies before me. I am almost raging with anger, but when one's
sister is in question----"
"You mean?" say Joyce a little faintly.
"Oh, you haven't heard. I am so annoyed myself about it, that I fancied
everybody knew. You know I hoped that you would have been good enough to
give me the first dance, but when Isabel asked me to dance it with that
dreadful daughter of Lady Dunscombe's, what _could_ I do, now I ask
you?" appealing to her with hands and eyes. "What _could_ I do?"
"Obey, of course," says she with an effort, but a successful one. "You
must hurry too, if you want to secure Miss Dunscombe."
"Ah; what a misfortune it is to be the brother of one's hostess," says
he, with a sort of comic despair. His eyes are centred on her face,
reading her carefully, and with much secret satisfaction;--rapid as that
slight change upon her face had been, he had seen and noted it.
"It couldn't possibly be a misfortune to be Lady Baltimore's brother,"
says she smiling. "On the contrary, you are to be congratulated."
"Not just at this moment surely!"
"At this or any other moment. Ah!"--as they enter the ballroom. "The
room is already fuller than I thought. Engaged, Mr. Blake?" to Lord
Blake's eldest son. "No, not for this. Yes, with pleasure."
She makes a little charming inclination of her head to Beauclerk, and
laying her hand on Mr. Blake's arm, moves away with him to where a set
is already forming at the end of the room. It is without enthusiasm she
takes her place with Dysart and one of the O'Donovan girls as
_vis-à-vis_, and prepares to march, retreat, twist and turn with the
best of them.
"A dull old game," she is irreverently terming the quadrilles--that
massing together of inelegant movements so dear to the bucolic
mind--that saving clause for the old maids and the wall-flowers; when a
little change of position shows her the double quartette on the right
hand side of the magnificent ballroom.
She had been half through an unimportant remark to Mr. Blake, but she
stops short now and forgets to finish it. Her color comes and goes. The
sides are now prancing through _their_ performance, and she and her
partner are standing still. Perhaps--_perhaps_ she was mistaken; with
all these swaying idiots on every side of her she might well have mixed
up one man's partner with another; and Miss Dunscombe (she had caught a
glimpse of her awhile ago) was surely in that set on the right hand
side.
She stoops forward, regardless--_oblivious_--of her partner's surprised
glance, who has just been making a very witty remark, and being a rather
smart young man, accustomed to be listened to, is rather taken aback by
her open indifference.
A little more forward she leans; yes, _now_--the couples part--for one
moment the coast lies clear. She can see distinctly. Miss Dunscombe is
indeed dancing in that set but _not_ as Mr. Beauclerk's partner. Miss
Maliphant has secured that enviable _rôle_.
Even as Joyce gazes, Beauclerk, turning his head, meets her earnest
regard. He returns it with a beaming smile. Miss Maliphant, whose duty
it is at this instant to advance and retire and receive without the
support of a chaperone the attacks of the bold, bad man opposite, having
moved out of Beauclerk's sight, the latter, with an expressive glance
directed at Joyce, lifts his shoulders forlornly, and gives a
serio-comic shrug of his shoulders. All to show now bored a being he is
at finding himself thus the partner of the ugly heiress! It is all done
in a second. An inimitable bit of acting--but unpleasant.
Joyce draws herself up. Her eyes fall away from his; unless the distance
is too far, the touch of disdain that lies in them should have
disconcerted even Mr. Beauclerk. Perhaps it has!
"Our turn?" says she, giving her partner a sudden beautiful glance full
of fire--of life--of something that he fails to understand, but does
_not_ fail to consider charming. She smiles; she grows radiant. She is a
different being from a moment ago. How could he--Blake--have thought her
stupid. How she takes up every word--and throws new meaning into it--and
_what_ a laugh she has! Low-sweet--merry--music to its core!
Beauclerk in his turn finds a loop-hole through which to look at her,
and is conscious of a faint feeling of chagrin. She oughtn't to have
taken it like that. To be a little pensive--a little sad--that would
have shewn a right spirit. Well--the night is long. He can play his game
here and there. There is plenty of time in which to regain lost ground
with one--to gain fresh ground with the other. Joyce will forgive
him--when she hears _his_ version of it.