"Well, never mind that," replied Henry, laughing; "nobody asks you. The question at present is, Will you dance with me?"
"Then the answer is, No, I will not," replied Lady Danvers; "I shall not dance to-night."
"Then I shall look for some one else," answered Henry; and, turning gayly away, he left her.
Lady Danvers remained for a moment or two musing in the same place. She asked herself, Was there any love between Ralph and Margaret? The heightened color in his cheek when first his eyes fell on his fair cousin, she had not remarked, but she had seen the eager gaze which Margaret fixed first upon him and then upon herself, and the impetuous haste with which he had flown to her aid when she fainted. She argued, however, thus: "Perhaps the sight of a relation so kind and so noble in his feelings, at the moment when she was dancing with a man whom she could not love, forced upon her by her relations, may have moved feelings deep enough to overpower her. Perhaps Ralph's eagerness might be all very natural and right; nay, it was natural and right, in one brought up with the poor girl in fraternal affection such as Henry Woodhall had described. Perhaps--" But there was no end of perhapses. Lady Danvers was willing to believe that there was no love between the two, and did believe it; and yet she asked herself, when her musing came to an end, "What matters it to me whether there be love or not?"
Had she been seeing sights and dreaming dreams? It might be so; and certain it is, that among the sweetest of all those dreams which flit deceptive before man's eyes, from the cradle to the grave, are those which are so faint and intangible that we are not ourselves conscious of their passing till they have passed.
However that may be, and whatever silent streams of that peculiar current of the mind which runs between thought and feeling--partaking, like the mingled waters of the Rhine and Maine, of the distinct coloring of each--had been flowing through her brain, certain it is that she hung about in the ball-room, now in one place, now in another, avoiding all long conversation with any one till Ralph made his appearance again, and that soon after they were talking together as before. Her first questions were for Margaret; but Ralph had by this time recovered full command over himself, and knew how dangerous it might be for all his hopes to suffer the feelings of his heart to appear. He replied, therefore, in as cool a tone of indifference as he could assume, and exerted himself during the rest of the evening to appear at ease and unconcerned.
Margaret did not reappear. Robert Woodhall also quitted the ball-room, and was seen in it no more; but Henry continued dancing and talking, and more than once mingled gayly and good-humoredly in conversation with his cousin Ralph and the young baroness, seeming just as well pleased with the intimacy which had so suddenly sprung up between them as if he had taken part in introducing them to each other.
Lord Woodhall was well pleased also. He was not a man of very quick perceptions--no great schemer or arranger of plans; and, although he would have been very willing to see his son marry any woman on earth with the fortune of Lady Danvers, it had never struck him that the alliance was worth seeking for any member of his family till the notion was propounded to him, already arranged, by the Duke of Norfolk. Neither did he feel any inclination to meddle with it after finding it thus settled to his hand. All he thought was, that Ralph was a very lucky fellow in having such an opportunity afforded him.
Such were the feelings of several personages on the scene when supper was announced, and the guests sat down to one of the most splendid entertainments of the period. I need not pause to give any account of the supper, nor to tell how the guests were served on massive plate of silver gilt, nor how they drank out of goblets of pure gold. Is it not written in the book of chronicles of the house of Howard? and do we not know that even the pokers, the tongs, the shovels, and the fenders of the palace of Norwich were of solid silver?
Before the evening meal was completely ended, however, a servant bent over Henry Woodhall's chair and whispered something in his ear. That young gentleman remained at table for a few minutes longer, but as soon as he could find a good opportunity, he slipped away from the table and did not return.