“Who have you got to dance?” said Tony with evident concern.
“Miss Clavier—the young woman who pleased everybody that night at Darsley. The vicar doesn’t mind. Have you very strong objections to skirt dancing, Tony?”
“No,” said Tony slowly, and Nettie fancied his voice was a trifle strained. “Of course I haven’t. Still, you must not depend too much on me. I mean I’ll get the limelights, and buy as many tickets as can be reasonably expected of me, but whether I’ll be there or not is another affair. I have to go up to London now and then, you see.”
The last was so evidently an inspiration that Hester laughed as she glanced at him. “We will contrive to fix a night that will suit you,” she said. “I fancy you had better submit quietly, Tony.”
Tony murmured something which was not wholly flattering to the promoters of such entertainments, and when he and Violet Wayne took their leave Hester glanced at Nettie.
“I wonder why Tony is anxious not to meet Miss Clavier again,” she said.
As it happened, Nettie was asking herself the same question, but she decided that there was nothing to be gained by mentioning it.
“The girl who dances! You think he didn’t want to meet her?” she said.
“Of course! He showed it. Everybody can tell what Tony is thinking. He is almost painfully transparent.”
“Well,” said Nettie slowly, “I don’t quite know. I have come across other men like him and found that they take one in. You fancy you can look right through them, and yet you see very little of what is inside them.”