"No relation of mine, Sir William, I regret," he said.
"No? Same name, too. Funny! But there are a good many Blakes. So you're going to run off with the belle of Shorne Mills, eh? Lucky fellow!"
With a chuckle he ambled off to his wife, to be sent to some one else, and Drake bent to Nell.
"Come!" was all he said, and he put his arm round her. The floor was good, the band from the garrison town knew its business, and Nell——Was he surprised that she should dance so well? Was not every ordinary movement of hers graceful? But the fact that she could dance like an angel, as he put it to himself, did not make his love for her any the less or his pride in her diminish, be certain. He himself had been the best dancer in his regiment, and this, his first waltz with the girl he adored, sent the blood spinning through his veins.
"Aren't we in step rather—nicely?" she whispered, trying to speak casually, but failing utterly; for the joy that throbbed in her heart made it impossible for her to keep her voice steady. "Oh, Drake, I—I was afraid that I might not be able to dance, it is so long—ever so long—since——Why, this is my first real ball, and I am dancing with you! And how well you waltz! But you have danced so often—this is not your first ball!"
He glanced at her with a pang of uneasiness, but her eyes shone up at him innocent of any other meaning than the simplest one, innocent of any doubt of him, any question of his past.
"He would be a rank duffer who couldn't dance with you, Nell," he said.
Her hand tightened on his with the faintest pressure, and she closed her eyes with a happy sigh.
"If it could only go on forever!" was her thought; and she prayed that no other man might want her to dance, for a long time.
She would have liked to sit out the dances she could not have with Drake, to sit and watch him. And she would not be jealous. Why should she be? Was he not her very own, her sweetheart, the man who loved her?