"Listen..." she said, "this is a waltz.... I am dying to dance.... Will you dance with me?"
Rupert looked into the laughing, radiant face, into the large blue eyes that could be so dreamy, so full of sadness at times, but which now had a touch of fire in them ... a look to bewilder and fascinate.
"Alas," he said, "I cannot dance, Mrs. Lancing."
Camilla struck him lightly on the arm with her fan.
"Oh! you tiresome person! You do nothing! You won't play cards ... you can't dance; you! ... What can you do?" With one of her bird-like movements she turned to a man standing beside him. "I know you can dance," she said, "come along."
They slipped away, and Rupert Haverford stood looking after her with his heart beating uncomfortably quickly.
He was conscious of a rush of sharp, resentful anger, and of course he was mortified. Camilla could sting very surely when she liked.
She was laughing and chatting away to the man whom she had annexed so calmly; he was neither young nor handsome, but he made no sort of incongruous figure. He danced as a matter of course, as a habit.
At all times dancing as a social custom was something that startled Rupert Haverford; now, as he saw Camilla held ever so lightly in the arms of another man, he felt choked, hurt, almost outraged.
His face was so stern, so angry that Camilla was satisfied.