Although trembling and suffused with terrified blushes, all her old shyness in possession, Mr. Abergenny was so admirable a partner, he gave her so many courteous hints, he kept her so persistently in the thick of the dancing, where critical eyes could hardly follow her, that her confidence not only returned, but before she had completed the circuit of the room three times she was vastly enjoying herself. She danced round and square dances with her various admirers for the next hour, and when the country dance was at its height she found herself tripping alone between the long files with no return of bashfulness and no less grace than Lady Mary herself; forgetting that there could be no better preparation for grace in the ball-room than years of free exercise out of doors.
She abandoned herself to the new and unanticipated pleasure, and not only of dancing but of being the acknowledged belle of the night. Beyond the intoxication of the moment nothing existed. Once indeed, she met Warner’s eyes, and they flashed with surprise and rage, but she forgot him and danced until even her strong frame could stand no more, and she went to bed with the dawn and slept till afternoon.
CHAPTER XV
Depressed with reaction and heavy with unwonted sleeping by daylight, she was glad to go from her dressing-table to the carriage waiting to take herself and her aunt for the customary drive. It was but a moment before her mind was startled into its accustomed activity.
“Mr. Warner has disappeared again.” Mrs. Nunn tilted her lace parasol against the slanting sun. “Poor Maria!”
“Disappeared?”
“That is the general interpretation. Maria, with whom he was to dine to-night, received a note from him this morning asking to be excused as he was going away for some time; and when Hunsdon rushed down to Hamilton House—unshaved and without his plunge—he was told that the poet was gone; none of the servants could say where nor when he would return. So that is probably the last of the reformed poet. I suppose last night’s excitement proved too much for him.”