"After all, my reason is better than yours," she says, in her sweet, petulant voice. "Come, let us dance: we are only wasting time."
Branscombe is at first surprised, then puzzled, then fascinated. Almost any other woman of his acquaintance would have accepted his remark as a challenge,—would have smiled, or doubted, or answered him with some speech that would have been a leading question. But with this girl all is different. She takes his words literally, and, while believing them, shows herself utterly careless of the belief.
Dorian, passing his arm round her waist, leads her out into the room, and again they waltz, in silence,—he having nothing to say to her, she being so filled with joy at the bare motion that she cares no more for converse. At last,
"Like some tired bee that flags
Mid roses over-blown,"
she grows languid in his arms, and stops before a door that leads into a conservatory. It has been exquisitely fitted up for the occasion, and is one glowing mass of green and white and crimson sweetness. It is cool and faintly lit. A little sad fountain, somewhere in the distance, is mourning sweetly, plaintively,—perhaps for some lost nymph.
"You will give me another dance?" says Branscombe, taking her card.
"If I have one. Isn't it funny?—I feared when coming I should not get a dance at all, because, of course, I knew nobody; yet I have had more partners than I want, and am enjoying myself so much."
"Your card is full," says Branscombe, in a tone that suggests a national calamity. "Would you—would you throw over one of these fellows for me?"
"I would, in a minute," says Miss Broughton, naïvely; "but, if he found me out afterwards, would he be angry?"
"He sha'n't find you out. I'll take care of that. The crowd is intense. Of course"—slowly—"I won't ask you to do it, unless you wish it. Do you?"