Joan had started a little--as a sensitive horse at the unexpected touch of its rider's heel. It was only for a moment; she recovered herself immediately.
"What story? I don't know of any! Tell me," she replied, annoyed with herself at being so "morbidly impressionable." Still, any allusion to her secret stung her to the quick. It disappointed her. She had wanted to bury her dead at once and for ever.
"Why, I hardly like alluding to your confidences to me," he began, a little taken aback by her sudden change of humour. "The story is about a girl named Zillah--a Bethlehemite--whose would-be lover rejected, gave out that she was possessed, and had her condemned to be burnt. But the stake blossomed into roses! I take that to mean that no real trouble can come to one who is pure and good by the machinations of any vile man, however base----"
"Oh, don't talk about it here!" she exclaimed, inwardly writhing. "Besides, I don't want ever to allude to--to--that affair of my poor friend's marriage again. It is not necessary. She has escaped from her troubles. It is that which has made me so happy. Do you understand? I cannot tell you how it has happened. You must trust me so far. But it is all over. I have only one, one boon to crave of you--that you will never, never again remind me of it. Can you do that much for your future wife? If you do keep raking up my past troubles, we shall not be happy. I promise you that!"
"My dearest, I would sacrifice much rather than ever say one word to annoy you, give you pain," he began, somewhat hurt and mystified.
"I know," she exclaimed, and once more she beamed upon him. A brilliant smile beautified a face which was too flushed for health; sudden pallor at the tale of the rose was succeeded by a burning glow. "And now, there they are, beginning another dance. I want to dance. I want to live; to enjoy life. Can't you imagine it? For ever so long I have been thinking myself a perfect wretch, not eligible, like other people, for the ordinary joys of life; and now that I find out I am not, that no innocent person has suffered for my absurd and ridiculous folly, I want to be happy. Oh! let me be, if only for to-night."
"Joan, that is hardly just, not to know that there is only one thing in this world I really wish for, your happiness," he said, with deep feeling. "However, do not let us have the faintest shadow between us, when we are on the eve of belonging to each other for ever--pray don't! Darling, I will be careful for the future. Do you forgive me?"
"Don't talk nonsense," she cried, with a little laugh which sounded so gay and careless that he led her to join the dancers somewhat reassured. As they danced onward, round and round the duke's beautiful ballroom, the electric light shining through the softly-tinted Bohemian glass upon the lavish decorations of roses of all shades, from pure white to the deepest crimson, they both almost recovered their equanimity. The deep, yearning love in each young heart was sufficiently sun-like to dispel all mists and shadows.
To both the evening speedily became one of unmixed delight. Once or twice they had temporarily parted and taken other partners "for the look of the thing." "Hating your dancing with another fellow as I do, I would rather that, than that the frivols among them should laugh at us," he told her. "You know, dearest, to be in love as we are is terribly out of date."
So they reluctantly separated for a while, to enjoy each other's proximity with a more subtle ecstasy afterwards. The last dance before supper Vansittart had retained for himself. "It is more than flesh and blood can do to give up that; besides, it is not expected of me, after the paragraphs in the papers," he said. So, after a delightful quarter of an hour's gyration to the charming melody of the "Erste Geliebte" waltz, he escorted Joan to the supper room.