Miss Morville raised her eyes from the portion of fricandeau of beef on her plate, and directed a quelling look at him. She then turned her attention to her hostess, saying: “Should you find it too much for you, ma’am, if I were to write all the invitations for you, and, in general, undertake the arrangements?”
The Dowager, snatching at this straw, bestowed one of her most gracious smiles upon her, and gave the assembled company to understand that under these conditions she might be induced to sink her personal inclinations in a benevolent desire to oblige her stepson. After that, she entered in a very exhaustive way, which lent no colour to her previous assertion that she was in failing health, into all the preparations it would be necessary to make for the ball. Long before dinner was at an end, she had talked herself into good-humour; and by the time she rose from the table she had reached the felicitous stage of saying how happy she would be to welcome the dear Duchess of Rutland to Stanyon, and how happy a number of persons of quite inferior rank would be to find themselves at Stanyon.
While the inevitable card-table was being set up in the Italian Saloon, the Earl found himself standing beside Miss Morville, a little withdrawn from the rest of the party. He could not resist saying to her, with an arch lift of his brows: “I have incurred your censure, ma’am?”
She seemed surprised. “No, how should you? Oh, you mean that most ill-advised remark you made! Well, I must say, it was the outside of enough! However, it is not my business to be censuring you, my lord, and if I seemed to do so I have only to beg pardon.”
“Don’t, I entreat! I will own my fault. Shall you dislike my ball?”
“Dislike it! No, indeed! I daresay I shall enjoy it excessively.”
“I am afraid you will be put to a great deal of trouble over it.”
He expected a polite disclaimer, but she replied, candidly: “I shall, of course, because whatever I suggest Lady St. Erth will not like, until she has been brought to believe that she thought of it herself. I wish very much that she would let me contrive the whole, for there is nothing I should like better. But that would be rather too much to expect her to do, and one should never be unreasonable!”
“You would like nothing better than to order all the arrangements for a large party? I can conceive of nothing more tiresome!”
“Very likely you might not, for I think gentlemen do not excel at such things.” She looked across the room, to where Martin was discussing with his mother the various families it would be proper to invite to the ball. “I expect he will ask her particularly to send a card to the Bolderwoods,” she said sagely. “If I were you, I would not mention to her that you wish them to be invited, for it will only put up her back, if you do, and you may depend upon Martin’s good offices in that cause.”