"Well, if you all will insist upon a change, and desire something more lively, then,—
'For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'
Perhaps after all you are right, and that will be better It will be rather effective, too, if uncomfortable, our all sitting on the polished floor."
"Fancy Nolly quoting Shakspeare," says Geoffrey, who has just entered, and is now leaning over Mona's chair. He stoops and whispers something in her ear that makes her flush and glance appealingly at Doatie. Whereon Miss Darling, who is quick to sympathize, rises, and soon learns what the whisper has been about.
"Oh! how charming!" she cries, clapping her hands. "The very thing! Why did we not think of it before? To teach Mona the last new step! It will be delicious." Good-natured Doatie, as she says this, springs to her feet and runs her hand into Mona's. "Come," she says. "Before to-night, I promise you, you shall rival Terpsichore herself."
"Yes, she certainly must learn before to-night," says Violet, with sudden and unexpected interest, folding and putting away her work as though bent on other employment. "Let us come into the ballroom."
"Do you know no other dances but those—er—very Irish performances?" asks Lady Rodney, in a supercilious tone, alluding to the country dance Mona and Geoffrey had gone through on the night of Doatie's arrival.
"No. I have never been to a ball in all my life," says Mona distinctly. But she pales a little at the note of contempt in the other's voice. Unconsciously she moves a few steps nearer to Geoffrey, and holds out her hand to him in a childish entreating fashion.
He clasps it and presses it lightly but fondly to his lips. His brow darkens. The little stern expression, so seldom seen upon his kindly face, but which is inherited from his father, creeps up now and alters him preceptibly.
"You mistake my mother," he says to Mona, in a peculiar tone, looking at Lady Rodney, not at her. "My wife is, I am sure, the last person she would choose to be rude to; though, I confess, her manner just now would mislead most people."