“I assure you,” stammered Crescenz, “I did not mean—I did not think——”
“I know you did not,” said Hamilton.
“He knows you never think, my dear,” said Madame Berger, who had overheard the last words when taking the place behind them.
“She never thinks or says anything unkind,” said Hamilton, warmly.
Madame Berger looked up saucily, and then turned to her partner, a gay student, to listen to some nonsense about her long blonde ringlets.
“Lina is angry that you have not asked her to dance,” said Crescenz, as she returned to join her mother. “Suppose you were to waltz with her next time; I know Hildegarde will not be in the least offended.”
Hamilton shook his head. “I am not so much afraid of giving offence as you are; besides, you may be mistaken.”
“No,” said Crescenz, “I am sure I am right, for I remember her saying she would keep a waltz for you, and you said you could not come at all. Oh, I remember it, for I was so sorry when you said so, that I did not care at all for the ball, or my new dress, or——”
Hamilton unconsciously pressed Crescenz’s hands, her heightened colour immediately reprimanded him for his imprudence, and he turned to Madame Rosenberg, and asked her how she liked playing chaperon?
“Better a great deal than I expected,” she answered, laughing; and then lowering her voice, she added, “our girls are certainly very pretty; you have no idea how civil all the men are to me on their account. Franz is enjoying a sort of triumph to-night, but the Major is not quite satisfied; he says the young officers have been talking nonsense to Crescenz, for she has been blushing every moment. Now, I have told him a hundred times it is from the heat of the room and the exertion of dancing. It would be better if he would go down to the club-room and smoke his pipe; he cannot expect the child to sit beside him all the evening as she does at home. She has very properly done her duty, and already danced twice with him, and more he cannot require. He has no sort of tact, the Major. Fancy his wanting her to fix her wedding-day just now, when she is thinking of anything in the world but her marriage. I never knew anything in the world so injudicious.”