“Will you accompany me to the ball-room?”
Hazel drew a step aside and exclaimed, half angrily, yet seemingly rather pleased at Corway’s audacity.
“Joe!”
“Hazel!” he responded with just the faintest suggestion of command in his voice.
It was his first assumption of authority over his affianced, and he won—for unlike the “feminine forwards” of the new school, she appreciated his strong character and showed it by clinging to his arm.
Neither of these two men could be considered handsome, though Corway had the advantage of being more youthful and taller of stature, with large, bright eyes and dark curly hair, which with clear-cut, manly features, seemed to charm the fancy and captivate the maiden’s eye.
While Rutley’s graceful and pliant frame carried more elegance, an assumed superb superiority, a cold, ironical disdain and lofty ease, bespoke an imperious nature, indifferent to that soft, beguilement so charming to women.
Corway turned to Rutley, and, bowing low, exclaimed, with studied politeness: “I beg my lord’s pardon,” and so saying, he passed up the piazza steps with Hazel and disappeared within.
They were closely followed by Mr. Harris and Mrs. Thorpe.
Rutley fixed the monocle to his eye and stared at the retreating Corway in blank amazement.