"I would not tell you an untruth," she murmured, looking down; "but the truth—sometimes one must, sometimes one ought—to hide it. And I hoped you would not need to know about this."
"Why, how could I help knowing it? Did you think it likely I might by chance forget you were in the ball-room to-night?"
What she thought clearly "blazed itself in the heart's colours on her simple face." But she did not lift her eyes or speak.
"I am very glad I know," he continued, in a rather stern tone. "If you had done this to me, and never told me why——"
"I should have trusted to you to guess that it was not my fault, and to forgive me for it," the girl interposed, looking up at last with a flash in her soft eyes that, as well as her words, told him a great deal more than she had any idea of.
"It was really so?" he demanded eagerly. "It was not your own desire to disappoint me so terribly?"
"Oh, no."
"If you had been left to yourself you would have danced with me?"
"Yes, of course."
"Quite willingly?"