And before Chris could recover from the horror she felt at these words, Stelfox had disappeared from the room in his usual noiseless manner.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE BALL.
The evening of the day following was that of the ball. Chris was in the lowest of low spirits, and would have shut herself up in her room but for Mr. Bradfield, who had insisted on her reserving a square dance for him. The strange communications made by Stelfox, and her own conviction that Mr. Richard was being unfairly treated, made her shy and depressed in the society of the master of the house, whose sharp eyes detected a change in her manner towards him. The girl was troubled also on her mother’s account. Mrs. Abercarne had been worried and exasperated, not only by the airs which Mrs. Graham-Shute gave herself, which she could have put up with, but by the orders she gave the servants on matters concerning the ball. Knowing her relationship to their master, and being somewhat impressed also by her pretensions, the servants did not dare to disobey her; so that in the attempt to serve two mistresses they wasted their time and fell to grumbling. A consciousness of the battle between the wills of the two ladies pervaded the entire household by the time the dancing began, and the ball opened in general depression.
“So good of you to give this dance for my girls!” cried Mrs. Graham-Shute’s loud voice in Mr. Bradfield’s ear, as he stood surveying the dancers, and looking about for Chris. “I’ve just been telling Mrs. Ethandene so,” she added, glancing at a middle-aged lady by her side, who was one of the great people of the place, and with whom, therefore, Mrs. Graham-Shute thought it advisable to strike up a friendship.
“H’m! Not much in my line—balls!” said Mr. Bradfield, grumpily, as he watched enviously the young fellow who was at that moment leading Chris out for a waltz.
“Who is that very distinguished-looking girl?” asked Mrs. Ethandene, who, having no daughters to marry, could afford a little admiration for those of other women.
“That one in the white nun’s veiling, with the marguerites in her bodice?” said Mrs. Graham-Shute, looking in the wrong direction either on purpose or by accident; “that is my daughter Lilith. She is hardly out yet, dear girl; but for my cousin John’s ball I couldn’t refuse her permission, you know.”
“No, no! I don’t mean her,” went on Mrs. Ethandene, a homely person, incapable of taking a hint of any kind. “I mean that tall girl with the good figure—the one in grey silk, with the flat gold necklace?”