‘Miss Prioleau is engaged for that to me,’ put in Captain Mountcharles, rather rudely.
‘The next, then?’ went on Herbert to Edith, without taking any notice of the A.D.C.
‘And for that too,’ said Mountcharles, in much the same tone as before.
‘Pardon me, I was speaking to Miss Prioleau, and I trust she will give me the answer herself.’
‘It’s quite—’ true she was going to say, as the easiest way out of the thing. But she was far too honest to tell a lie, even about a dance, and besides there was a mute appealing look in Herbert’s face which went to her heart. ‘I mean that you are rather late in the day, Mr. Larkins.’
She had promised not to dance with him, that was the fact. There had been a scene at the general’s about this Mr. Larkins, as Mrs. Prioleau called him. Edith had been taken rather sharply to task for encouraging him, and both father and mother had begged her to be careful. The man wasn’t half good enough for her, they said. They had no absurd scruples about birth and position, and all that, still she ought to do much better than take a soldier of fortune, about whom and his belongings nothing whatever was known. Edith, remembering the Moorish Castle adventure, thought she could have enlightened her parents as to Herbert’s belongings, but she had no wish to injure him or to blacken him in their eyes. She only hotly repudiated the charge of favouring him, and agreed readily to do anything they wished. She would cut him if they liked. Not necessary? Well, snub him then? Not necessary either. What then? General and Mrs. Prioleau declared they would be satisfied if she would promise not to dance with the objectionable pretender at the Governor’s ball, and Edith gave her word to that effect.
This was why she had received Herbert so coldly. The other adventure had weighed, perhaps, with her, but not much.
As for Herbert, he was utterly taken aback. What could be the matter with Edith? Why this extraordinary change? Was the girl capricious, a mere flirt, a garrison belle, to whom admiration was everything, and admirers or their feelings simply nothing at all? Herbert did not like to think so hardly of her all at once, and resolved to make another attempt.