"My dear James, I am not recommending marriage to you—only a harmless waltz."
"Then they are for sale to the highest bidder, whoever he may happen to be. The poor, impecunious lover—be he ever so much a lover, and the best fellow that walks the earth into the bargain—must take himself off—and cut his throat for all she cares."
At this sudden change from the plural to the singular, and at something personal and impertinent that she recognised in the tone and look of the speaker, a deep blush flooded Rachel's face, and she rose from her seat with dignity, but trembling in all her limbs.
"Aw—who the dickens is that fellow?" Mr. Buxton whispered, with a scowl—supposing, however, that he could only be a disappointed aspirant for Rachel's hand. "He's an impudent brute, whoever he is, and I have a good mind to tell him so. What's his name, eh?"
"I don't know," said Rachel. But as she spoke, and was about to move away, the stranger rose and stood with an air of courteous deference to let her pass him—an air that somehow indicated the breeding and manners of a gentleman; and all at once it flashed across her where and when she had seen him before. He was the man who had called at Toorak and been closeted with her aunt at the time when Roden Dalrymple had promised to come for her, nearly two years ago. She had gone out into the garden, thinking he might possibly have been Roden, to intercept him as he was going away. She had had only a distant glimpse of him—of his short, square figure, and the lower part of his face—but she recognised now that this was the same man. She had not gone many steps into the room, feeling strangely overwhelmed by her discovery, when a pair of exhausted waltzers went trailing by, and one of them said to the other, "Didn't somebody say Jim Gordon was here to-night? Where is the old fellow hiding himself? I should like to see him again."
The little man with the eyeglass was—of course he was—Roden Dalrymple's friend and partner.
She drew her hand from her cousin's arm, turned round, and walked deliberately back to the seat she had just quitted.
"No," she said to her pursuing cavalier, "do not come. Go and dance with somebody, and fetch me presently."
"My dear Rachel, you must allow me—aw, I couldn't really—"
"I want to speak to Mr. Gordon," she said, pausing in front of that gentleman. "Mr. Gordon, I want to ask you something. Will you kindly take me out to the lobbies—somewhere where it is quiet—if this lady will excuse you for a few minutes?"