"You think it ridiculous, don't you?" says Georgie, faintly, ashamed of herself; "but it is quite true, and I can't help it. I was eighteen last month, and never before was I at any ball. I shall never forget this room,—I know that,—or the lights, or the flowers, or the man over there beating time for the band, or—or anything."
"I think 'the man over there' has much the best of it," says Dorian. "I wish I was the leader of that band. Is there any chance that your partners of this evening will be remembered by you?"
"Well, I suppose I sha'n't quite forget you," says Georgie, seriously, after a moment's careful reflection.
"I'll take jolly good care you don't," says Mr. Branscombe, rather losing his head, because of her intense calmness, and speaking with more emphasis than as a rule belongs to him. "You are staying at the vicarage aren't you?"
"Yes," says Georgie.
"And I live just three miles from that——." Here he pauses, as though afraid to make his insinuation too plain.
"At Sartoris, isn't it?" asks Georgie, sweetly. "Yes? Clarissa showed me the entrance-gate to it last week. It looks pretty."
"Some day will you come up and see it?" asks he, with more earnestness than he acknowledges even to himself; "and," with a happy thought, "bring the children. It will be a nice walk for them."
"But you are always in London, are you not?" says Georgie.
"Oh, no, not always: I sha'n't go there again, for ever so long. So promise, will you?"