“Why should you endeavour to forget? Why are you so changed to me, Reginald?” she asked with an enormous effort. “What makes you so stern, so hard to me?” she faltered, laying a timid little hand on his. “Won’t you tell me?”
He would—he will—he is about to speak—he has thrown away the fern-stalk, and has taken her hand firmly in his own. Precisely at this critical moment a well-known voice exclaimed jovially:
“So here you are!” and Geoffrey suddenly appeared before them. “Fairly run to earth! A nice dance you’ve led me. None but a couple of regular professional flirts would have found out this cover. Alice, your partners are literally tearing each other to pieces in the ball-room, and unless you wish for bloodshed you had better be off—it’s really serious!” offering his arm. “You have five men waiting for the same dance.”
Oh, Geoffrey! Geoffrey! If you had only come five minutes later! Reginald dropped Alice’s hand like the traditional live coal, and Alice shrank back into her corner of the sofa at the first sound of her cousin’s approach.
“I’m engaged for this too,” said Reginald, rising and looking at his programme. “You will take Alice back to the ball-room, I suppose, then?” he observed, with extraordinary command of countenance; and, turning away, he sauntered off, ostensibly in search of his own partner.
The ball was over; people were leaving in crowds—the Fairfaxes among the first flight.
“Alice,” said Geoffrey from his corner of the carriage, “I am proud of you; you took the shine out of them all to-night. Now I can believe in the old duke’s infatuation.”
“What duke?” asked Miss Ferrars sleepily.
“Have you never heard that the old Duke of St. Remo, old enough to be her great-grandfather, fell madly in love with my pretty little cousin when she was at Nice, and proposed in due form?”
“Geoffrey, be quiet; you are really very provoking. Do leave me alone,” crossly.