Drake laughed easily.
"Would you like to go?" he asked of Nell.
"Would you?" she returned.
Loverlike, he thought of a dance with her. She was, her girlish innocence, so sparing of her caresses, that the prospect of holding her in his arms during a waltz set him aching with longing.
"Yes," he said, "if you like."
"All right," she said. "Yes, I should think we might go, Dick."
"I should think so!" he shouted. "Fancy chucking away the chance of a dance!"
"How did they come to ask us?" Nell inquired. "We don't know them very well," she explained to Drake. "The Maltbys are quite grand folk compared with us; and, though Lady Maltby calls once in a blue moon, and sends us cards for a garden party now and again, this is the first time we have been invited to a dance."
"You have to thank me, young people," said Dick, with exaggerated self-satisfaction. "I happened to meet young Maltby—he's home for a spell; fancy he's sent down from Oxford—and he asked me to go rabbiting with him. He's not much of a shot, though he is a baronet's son and heir, and I rather think I put him up to a wrinkle or two. Anyway, the other day he mentioned that they were going to have a dance—quite an informal affair—and asked if I'd care to go; and Lady Maltby's just sent a note."
"All right," said Drake.