"Nor your misfortune either," and Mrs. Atterbury glanced archly at her rival, Mrs. Davis, the mature beauty of the scene.
Dick, meanwhile, not so dexterous in expedients or ready in speech as his mentor, became wedged in an eddy, just outside the main stream, pouring drawing-room ward, so that, returning to the spot where they had separated, Jack did not, for the moment, discover him.
Rosa's gayety and delight deepened the depression that made Dick so unlike himself. At first, in the exuberance of the scene, the girl did not heed this. She knew everybody, and, though in daily contact with most of them, there were no end of whispered confidences to exchange and tender reassurances in ratification of some new compact. Then there were solemn notes of comparison as to the fit and form of gowns, or the fit of a furbelow, exhaustively discussed, perhaps that very afternoon. Keen eyes, merry and tantalizing, were lifted to Dick's sulky face during this pretty by-play, but all the gayety of the comedy was lost to him. When he could contain himself no longer, with another bevy of cronies in sight coming down the stairs, he cried out, desperately:
"For Heaven's sake, Rosa, don't wait here like the statue in St. Peter's, to be kissed by everybody on the way to the pope; it's simply sickening to stand here like a shrine to be slopped by girls that you see every day. Come away; I want to say something to you."
Rosa turned her astonished eyes upon the railer, and, with a comic movement of immense dignity, drew her arm from his sheltering elbow, and, in tones of freezing hauteur retorted:
"And since when, sir, are you master of my conduct? I am my own mistress, I believe. I shall kiss whom I please."
"O Rosa, Rosa, I didn't mean that; I don't know what I meant. I—O Rosa, don't be fretful with me now! I can't bear it. I am ill—I mean I am tired. Come and sit with me."
Several on the outer edge of the flowing current turned curiously as this sharp cry of boyish pleading rose above the noisy clamor. It was impossible, however, to push backward, but in an instant the lovers were sheltered in an alcove near the doorway. Rosa had taken his rejected arm again in a panic of guilty repentance, and, looking at his half-suffused eyes, cried, piteously:
"Oh, forgive me, Richard, forgive me—I did not mean it! I forgot you were ill. Ah, please, please forgive me! You know—I—I—"
But Dick, now conscious that inquiring eyes were fastened upon them, curious ears listening, seized her arm, and, by main force, reached the hall doorway, now nearly deserted.