Yet for all the fiddlers are inviting the world to dance, for all the world declares the whole entertainment promises to be a grand success (though not so grand as it should be, considering the ample means at the disposal of my lady Bunbutter whose father was able to leave a large fortune to a milliner in Soho), her ladyship herself casts many an anxious glance towards the entrance. The courtiers have arrived but the King is still absent, and absent he is likely to remain having caught a slight nasal catarrh from his contact with the night weather, brought about by Mr. Lovely. For this story his absence was even more important in its consequences than my Lady Bunbutter dreamed, since if the Beau had been present on this occasion I doubt he would have persuaded our heroine to give up all thoughts of elopements, seductions, stratagems and rope-ladder courtships. As it fell out, there was nobody to encourage the unromantick side of her, that is to say, nobody whose opinion she could honestly respect.
Mr. Francis Vernon had hired the old dancing hall for a midnight party of farewell; and the old dancing hall still possessed an oak door which opened on a long corridor which in its turn opened into the new and improved dancing hall of Daish's Rooms. Halfway along this corridor was a recessed glasshouse now bare of vegetation, bleak and unfriendly in the chilly moonlight but a very convenient place for the renewal of true-lovers' vows when one of the lovers had not been invited to my Lady Bunbutter's rout. So in the press of the opening gavottes, as Phyllida passed down the side of the room to wait beside her mother's empty chair, long white fingers plucked at the black silk mittens that netted her soft little hand. Phyllida started and, looking up, saw the fingers withdraw themselves through the space left by a half-opened door.
She looked round in affright, but the fiddlers were busy over the gentle tune and all the world of scandal was dancing or about to dance. The thrill of his touch gave her strength enough to make up her mind and, without more than a moment's hesitation, she slipped through the doorway whose opening was obscured by greenery.
A solitary candle lit the long corridor with fitful draughty light.
"Come," said Vernon; and, taking his arm, she went down the passage which seemed to stretch far away—to ruin perhaps, but the end was not perceptible owing to the scarce illumination.
Soon they were alone in the chilly glasshouse with the moon and a star or two besides.
"To-morrow, my dearest life," he whispered.
"No, no," said Phyllida.
"To-morrow," he went on, "a post-chaise will be waiting by the toyshop, and on the seat a riding hood of peacock blue that to-day I bought for my love."
"No! No! Amor, dear Amor, I am afraid."