Hawkins became very red. “Well, the next after that,” he persisted, trying to catch her eye.
“There isn’t any next,” said Francie, looking suddenly at him with defiant eyes; “after the next we’re going home.”
Hawkins stared for a brief instant at her with a sparkle of anger in his eyes. “Oh, very well,” he said with exaggerated politeness of manner, “I thought I was engaged to you for the first dance after supper, that was all.”
He turned away at once and walked out of the room, brushing past Charlotte at the door, and elbowed his way through the uproarious throng that crowded the staircase. Mrs. Beattie, coming up from the tea-table with her fellow-matrons, had no idea of permitting her prize guest to escape so early. Hawkins was captured, his excuses were disregarded, and he was driven up the stairs again.
“Very well,” he said to himself, “if she chooses to throw me over, I’ll let her see that I can get on without her.” It did not occur to him that Francie was only acting in accordance with the theory of the affair that he had himself presented to Captain Cursiter. His mind was now wholly given to revenging the snub he had received, and, spurred by this desire, he advanced to Miss Lynch, who was reposing in an armchair in a corner of the landing, while her partner played upon her heated face with the drawing-room bellows, and secured her for the next dance.
When Mr. Hawkins gave his mind to rollicking, there were few who could do it more thoroughly, and the ensuing polka was stamped through by him and Miss Lynch with a vigour that scattered all opposing couples like ninepins. Even his strapping partner appealed for mercy.
“Oh, Mr. Hawkins,” she panted, “wouldn’t you chassy now please? if you twirl me any more, I think I’ll die!”
But Mr. Hawkins was deaf to entreaty; far from moderating his exertions, he even snatched the eldest Miss Beattie from her position as on-looker, and, compelling her to avail herself of the dubious protection of his other arm, whirled her and Miss Lynch round the room with him in a many-elbowed triangle. The progress of the other dancers was necessarily checked by this performance, but it was viewed with the highest favour by all the matrons, especially those whose daughters had been selected to take part in it. Francie looked on from the doorway, whither she and her partner, the Reverend Corkran, had been driven for safety, with a tearing pain at her heart. Her lips were set in a fixed smile—a smile that barely kept their quivering in check—and her beautiful eyes shone upon the dazzled curate through a moisture that was the next thing to tears.
“I want to find Miss Mullen,” she said at last, dragging Mr. Corkran towards the stairs, when a fresh burst of applause from the dancing-room made them both look back. Hawkins’ two partners had, at a critical turn, perfidiously let him go with such suddenness that he had fallen flat on the floor, and having pursued them as they polkaed round the room, he was now encircling both with one arm, and affecting to box their ears with his other hand, encouraged thereto by cries of “Box them, Mr. Hawkins!” from Mrs. Beattie. “Box them well!”
Charlotte was in the dining-room, partaking of a gentlemanly glass of Marsala with Mr. Beattie, and other heads of families.