"I will," returned Margaret.
"I dare say," said Harriet laughing scornfully, "but I won't let you. I will lock you up in the store-room among the apricots."
"I am in earnest," said Margaret, "take your choice."
"The pleasure of dancing the next quadrille with you, Miss Conway," said Sir Hawarth Fane, evidently rather intoxicated.
"Engaged, Sir Hawarth," replied Harriet in some confusion, her colour rose, her breath grew short, she was evidently in much agitation.
"Engaged! I am deucedly sorry for that," said Sir Hawarth in a thick voice, "I'll wait till after this quadrille, and perhaps I may prevail on you to galop with me afterwards."
He certainly looked in a charming condition for a galop. Harriet replied that she was really sorry, but that they were to leave the ball-room after the next dance.
Sir Hawarth muttered something about his being in confounded ill-luck; and that there was not another woman in the room worth dancing with.
"And pray," he whispered, "could not you be off your engagement? Is it any very particular person? Who is it, if I may be so bold?"
The dancers were collecting; Harriet, not knowing how to answer, and aware that he was not quite composed in his mind, glanced uneasily round the room. Mr. Gage coming forward in the most natural manner, said easily: