“You won’t do it here,” said Sherry, with gloomy satisfaction. “Come to think of it, a pretty pair of cakes we must look, you and I, running after a couple of females who won’t have anything to do with us! And nothing to drink but this curst tea!”
“She will have Monty!” George said heavily.
“Not she!”
“She is going in his curricle on some damned expedition tomorrow. She told me so. I will not waste my time here any longer. I shall go back to the White Hart. They have a very tolerable Chambertin there.”
“Dashed if I won’t come with you!” said Sherry.
“You cannot. You are escorting Lady Sheringham and Miss Milborne.”
“I’ll come back in time to take ’em home,” said Sherry, “unless — By Jove, I might force Ferdy to give up his place in the cotillion to me!”
“What’s the use of that?” George said. “I’ve done much the same thing before now, but the fact of the matter is a ball is no place for private conversation. You are for ever being separated by the movement of the dance, and it all ends in a quarrel.”
“Well, I dare say you may be right,” Sherry said. “And if I bore Kitten off — ”
“You can’t do that!” George said, shocked. “Devilish strict at these balls! What’s more, if she refused to go with you, you’d look a bigger cake than you do now.”