"You must give me another dance, Mrs. Rodney, before your card is quite full," says the duke, smiling. "If, indeed, I am yet in time."
"Yes, quite in time," says Mona. Then she pauses, looking at him so earnestly that he is compelled to return her gaze. "You shall have another dance," she says, in her clear voice, that is perfectly distinct to every one; "but you must not call me Mrs. Rodney: I am only Mrs. Geoffrey!"
A dead silence follows. Lady Rodney raises her head, scenting mischief in the air.
"No?" says Lauderdale, laughing. "But why, then? There is no other Mrs. Rodney, is there?"
"No. But there will be when Captain Rodney marries. And Lady Rodney says I have no claim to the name at all. I am only Mrs. Geoffrey."
She says it all quite simply, with a smile, and a quick blush that arises merely from the effort of having to explain, not from the explanation itself. There is not a touch of malice in her soft eyes or on her parted lips.
Lady Chetwoode looks at her fan and then at Sir Guy. The duchess, with a grave expression, looks at Lady Rodney. Can her old friend have proved herself unkind to this pretty stranger? Can she have already shown symptoms of that tyrannical temper which, according to the duchess, is Lady Rodney's chief bane? She says nothing, however, but, moving her fan with a beckoning gesture, draws her skirts aside, and motions to Mona, to seat herself beside her.
Mona obeys, feeling no shrinking from the kindly stout lady who is evidently bent on being "all things" to her. It does occur, perhaps, to her laughter-loving mind that there is a paucity of nose about the duchess, and a rather large amount of "too, too solid flesh;" but she smothers all such iniquitous reflections, and commences to talk with her gayly and naturally.