They stood for a moment in awkward silence, while, from the lighted house where the flying figures circled, came the waltz: “I dreamt that I dwe-helt in ma-har-ble halls.” Tom's own dreams were much wilder than the gypsy girl's; he knew that; yet he spoke out bravely:
“Will you dance the two first with me?”
Miss Betty bit her lip, frowned, turned away, and, vouchsafing no reply, walked toward the house with her eyes fixed on the ground; but just as they reached the door she flashed over him a look that scorched him from head to foot, and sent his spirits down through the soles of his boots to excavate a grotto in the depths of the earth, so charged it was with wrathful pity and contempt.
“Yes!” she said abruptly, and followed Mrs. Tanberry to the dressing-room.
The elder lady shook her head solemnly as she emerged from the enormous folds of a yellow silk cloak. “Ah, Princess,” she said, touching the girl's shoulder with her jeweled hand, “I told you I was a very foolish woman, and I am, but not so foolish as to offer advice often. Yet, believe me, it won't do. I think that is one of the greatest young men I ever knew, and it's a pity—but it won't do.”
Miss Betty kept her face away from her guardian for a moment. No inconsiderable amount of information had drifted to her, from here and there, regarding the career of Crailey Gray, and she thought how intensely she would have hated any person in the world except Mrs. Tanberry for presuming to think she needed to be warned against the charms of this serenading lady-killer, who was the property of another girl.
“You must keep him away, I think,” ventured Mrs. Tanberry, gently.
At that Betty turned to her and said, sharply:
“I will. After this, please let us never speak of him again.”
A slow nod of the other's turbaned head indicated the gravest acquiescence. She saw that her companion's cheeks were still crimson. “I understand,” said she.