"Good!" he said. And then imperiously, "Why don't you drink some wine?"
She made a slight, startled movement. "I never do, I don't like it."
"You need it," he said, and made a curt sign to one of the servants.
Wine was poured into her glass, and she drank submissively. The discipline of the past two weeks had made her wholly docile. And the wine warmed and cheered her in a fashion that made her think that perhaps he was right and she had needed it.
When the dinner came to an end she was feeling far less scared and strange. Guests were beginning to assemble for the dance, and as they passed out people whom she knew by sight but to whom she had never spoken came up and talked with her as though they were old friends. Several men asked her to dance, but she steadily refused them all. Her turn would come later.
"I am going up to see Mrs. Everard," was her excuse. "She is expecting me."
And then Scott came, and she turned to him with eager welcome. "Oh, please, will you take me to see Isabel?"
He gave her a straight, intent look, and led her out of the throng.
His hand rested upon her arm as they mounted the stairs and she thought he moved with deliberate slowness. At the top he spoke.
"Dinah, before you see her I ought to prepare you for a change. She has been losing ground lately. She is not—what she was."