The Duchess hastened to join his Majesty and together they threaded their way through many groups.
Nell tossed her head.
“How I love her!” she muttered, veiling the sarcasm under her breath.
She crossed the great room, her head erect. Her confidence was quite restored. This had been the most difficult bit of acting she had ever done; and how well it had been done!
The other dancers in twos and threes passed from the room in search of quiet corners, in which to whisper nothings.
Nell’s eyes fell upon Strings, who had had a slight turn for the better in the world and who now, in a dress of somewhat substantial green, was one of the fiddlers at the Duchess’s ball.
“How now, sirrah!” she said, sharply, as she planted herself firmly before him to his complete surprise. “I knew you were here.”
She placed one of her feet in a devil-may-care fashion upon a convenient chair in manly contempt of its upholstery and peeped amusedly through her mask at her old friend. He looked at her in blank amazement.
“Gads-bobbs,” he exclaimed, in confusion, “the Irish gentleman knows me!”
“There’s nothing like your old fiddle, Strings,” continued Nell, still playing with delight upon his consternation. “It fills me with forty dancing devils. If you were to play at my wake, I would pick up my shroud, and dance my way into Paradise.”