‘Why, bless me! is that you, my dear!
However did you come dancing here
Over the heather?’”
“I had forgotten that it ended so tragically,” said Frithiof, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “Well, never mind, it is only a poem; let us leave melancholy to poets and novelists, and enjoy real life.”
Just then a polka was struck up and he hastily made his bow to Blanche.
“And yet one needs a touch of tragedy in real life,” she observed, “or it becomes so dreadfully prosaic.”
“Oh,” said Frithiof, laughing, as he bore her off; “then for Heaven’s sake let us be prosaic to the end of the chapter.”
Cecil heard the words, they seemed to her to fit in uncannily with the words of the poem; she could not have explained, and she did not try to analyze the little thrill of pain that shot through her heart at the idea. Neither could she have justified to herself the shuddering repulsion she felt when Cyril Morgan drew near, intercepting her view of Frithiof and Blanche.
“May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he said, in his condescending tone.
“Thank you, but I am so tired,” she replied. “Too tired for any more to-night.”