So Tom Ryfe turned back into the crowd, and waited his opportunity for a few minutes' conversation with Miss Bruce.
It came at last. She had danced through several engagements, the night was waning, and a few carriages had already been called up. Maud occupied the extreme end of a bench, from which a party of ladies had just risen to go away: she had declined to dance, and for the moment was alone. Tom slipped into the vacant seat by her side, and thus cut her off from the whole surrounding world. A waltz requiring much terrific accompaniment of brass instruments pealed out its deafening strains within ten feet of them, and in no desert island could there have been less likelihood that their conversation would be overheard.
Miss Bruce looked very happy, and in thorough good-humour. Tom Ryfe opened the trenches quietly enough.
"You haven't danced with me the whole evening," said he, with only rather a bitter inflection of voice.
"You never asked me," was the natural rejoinder.
"And I'm not going to ask you, now," proceeded Mr. Ryfe; "you and I, Miss Bruce, have something more than a mere dancing acquaintance, I think."
An impatient movement, a slight curl of the lip, was the only answer.
"You may drop an acquaintance when you are tired of him, or a friend when he gets troublesome. It's done every day. It's very easy, Miss Bruce."
He spoke in a tone of irony that roused her.
"Not so easy," she answered, with tightening lips, "when people have no tact--when they are not gentlemen.