But they noted neither praise nor detraction: they saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, but themselves and the other music, till two valsers a deux temps plunged into them. Thus smartly reminded they had not earth all to themselves, they laughed good-humouredly and paused.
“Ah! I am happy!” gushed from Julia. She hushed at herself, and said severely, “You dance very well, sir.” This was said to justify her unguarded admission, and did, after a fashion. “I think it is time to go to mamma,” said she demurely.
“So soon? And I had so much to say to you.”
“Oh, very well. I am all attention.”
The sudden facility offered set Alfred stammering a little. “I wanted to apologise to you for something—you are so good you seem to have forgotten it—but I dare not hope that—I mean at Henley—when the beauty of your character, and your goodness, so overpowered me, that a fatal impulse——”
“What do you mean, sir?” said Julia, looking him full in the face, like an offended lion, while, with true feminine and Julian inconsistency her bosom fluttered like a dove. “I never exchanged one word with you in my life before to-day; and I never shall again if you pretend the contrary.”
Alfred stood stupified, and looked at her in piteous amazement.
“I value your acquaintance highly, Mr. Hardie, now I have made it, as acquaintances are made; but please to observe, I never saw you before—scarcely; not even in church.”
“As you please,” said he, recovering his wits in part. “What you say I'll swear to.”
“Then I say, never remind a lady of what you ought to wish her to forget.”