"There is one name on that card I can't bear," says Miss Broughton, with her eyes fixed upon a flower she holds. Her dark lashes have fallen upon her cheeks, and lie there like twin shadows. He can see nothing but her mobile lips and delicately pencilled brows. He is watching her closely, and now wonders vaguely if she is a baby or a coquette.
"Show me the man you would discard," he says, running her pencil down her programme.
"There,—stop there. The name is Huntley, is it not? Yes. Well, he is old, and fat, and horrid; and I know he can't dance. You may draw the pencil across his name,—if you are sure, quite sure, he won't find me out."
"He shall not. But I would far rather you condemned that fair-haired fellow you were talking to just now," says Dorian, who is vaguely, faintly jealous of young Bellew.
"But he is so much nicer than Mr. Huntley," declares Georgie, earnestly: "and he was my first partner, and I promised him so faithfully to keep this dance for him."
"He'll never see you in the crush," says Branscombe.
"But I told him exactly where to find me."
"It is the most difficult thing in the world to be anywhere at the precise moment stated."
"But I should like to dance with him again," declares Miss Broughton, innocently, being driven into a corner.
"Oh, of course that ends the matter," says Dorian, in an impossible tone, drawing the pencil with much uncalled-for energy across Mr. Huntley's name.