They find the drawing-rooms still rather empty. Marcia is before them, and Philip and Mr. Potts; also Sir Penthony. Two or three determined ball-goers have arrived, and are dotted about, looking over albums, asking each other how they do, and thinking how utterly low it is of all the rest of the county to be so late. "Such beastly affectation, you know, and such a putting on of side, and general straining after effect."
"I hope, Miss Amherst, you have asked a lot of pretty girls," says Plantagenet, "and only young ones. Old maids make awful havoc of my temper."
"I don't think there are 'lots' of pretty girls anywhere; but I have asked as many as I know. And there are among them at least two acknowledged belles."
"You don't say so!" exclaims Sir Penthony. "Miss Amherst, if you wish to make me eternally grateful you will point them out to me. There is nothing so distressing as not to know. And once I was introduced to a beauty, and didn't discover my luck until it was too late. I never even asked her to dance! Could you fancy anything more humiliating? Give you my honor I spoke to her for ten minutes and never so much as paid her a compliment. It was too cruel,—and she the queen of the evening, as I was told afterward."
"You didn't admire her?" asks Cecil, interested. "Never saw her beauty?"
"No. She was tall and had arched brows,—two things I detest."
The ball is at its height. Marcia, dressed in pale maize silk,—which suits her dark and glowing beauty,—is still receiving a few late guests in her usual stately but rather impassive manner. Old Mr. Amherst, standing beside her, gives her an air of importance. Beyond all doubt she will be heavily dowered,—a wealthy heiress, if not exactly the heir.
Philip, as the supposed successor to the house and lands of Herst, receives even more attention; while Molly, except for her beauty, which outshines all that the room contains, is in no way noticeable. Though, when one holds the ace of trumps, one feels almost independent of the other honors.
The chief guest—a marquis, with an aristocratic limp and only one eye—has begged of her a square dance. Two lords—one very young, the other distressingly old—have also solicited her hand in the "mazy dance." She is the reigning belle; and she knows it.
Beautiful, sparkling, brilliant, she moves through the rooms. A great delight, a joyous excitement, born of her youth, the music, her own success, fills her. She has a smile, a kindly look, for every one. Even Mr. Buscarlet, in the blackest of black clothes and rather indifferent linen, venturing to address her as she goes by him, receives a gracious answer in return. So does Mrs. Buscarlet, who is radiant in pink satin and a bird-of-paradise as a crown.