“Have a care,” whispered the Duchess, nervously. “It is the King.”
“What care I for a king?” saucily replied Nell, with a finger-snap. She had taken good care, however, to speak very low. “My arm, my arm, Duchess!” she continued, with a gallant step. “Places, places; or the music will outstrip us.”
“Strut on, my pretty bantam,” thought Buckingham, whose eyes lost little that might be turned to his own advantage; “I like you well.”
There was no mending things at this stage by an apology. The Duchess, therefore, tactfully turned the affair into one of mirth, in which she was quickly joined by her guests. With a merry laugh, she took the Irish gallant’s proffered arm, and together they led the dance. The King picked a lady indifferently from among the maskers.
It was a graceful old English measure. Nell’s roguish wits, as well as her feet, kept pace with the music. She assured her partner that she had never loved a woman in all her life before and followed this with a hundred merry jests and sallies, keyed to the merry fiddles, so full of blarney that all were set a-laughing. Anon, the gallants drew their swords and crossed them in the air, while the ladies tiptoed in and out. Nell’s blade touched the King’s blade. When all was ended the swords saluted with a knightly flourish, then tapped the floor.
There was an exultant laugh from one and all, and the dance was done.
Nell hastened to her partner’s side. She caught the Duchess’s hand and kissed it.
“You dance divinely, your grace,” she said. “A goddess on tiptoe.”
“Oh, Beau Adair!” replied the Duchess, courtseying low; and her eyes showed that she was not wholly displeased at the warmth of his youthful adoration.