Never in her life, perhaps, had the countess received a sharper hurt; for he had refused to see the hand she had reached out to him involuntarily. Yet assuredly Lady Dromard had never spoken in a more ordinary tone than that of her next words, a minute later.
"It occurred to me, Harry, that if we really think of dancing one evening during the cricket week, we might do worse than ask these people from the rectory. You must have girls to dance with. Still, if you think better not, you have only to say so."
"I think it's for you to decide; but, if you ask me, I don't see the least objection to it," said Lord Manister, with a smooth ceremony that had a sharper edge than his rough words. "I'm not sure, however, that they will come every time you ask them."
"Pourquoi?"
"Because they're the most independent people in the world, the Australians."
"It would scarcely touch their independence," said Lady Dromard with careless contempt; "but we can really do without them, and I am glad of your hint, because now I shall not think of asking them."
"Now, my dear mother," cried Lord Manister, no longer either hot or cold, but his old self for once in his anxiety—"you misunderstand me entirely! I'm not great on a dance at all, but if we're to have one we must, as you say, have somebody to dance with; and I want you to ask these people."
CHAPTER X.
A THREATENING DAWN.
"I like a dance where you can dance," said Herbert, who was looking at himself in a glass and wondering how long his white tie had been on one side. "It was worth fifty of the swell show you took us to in town, Ruth."