"Fie, Mr. Bold," cries she, "when did you ask me?"
"I ask you now," I said, and with that I took her under my arm and strode among the dancers with so fierce and determined an air (as Mistress Lucetta told me) that, being more than common tall, I was much observed and humorously criticized by the company. I suppose I carried the same fierceness into my dancing, for after footing it for the space of a minute, Mistress Lucetta begged me to stop, saying she had no fancy for dancing with a whirlwind.
"Take me to a seat, Mr. Bold. I am going to talk to you," she said.
And talk to me she did, in a way that mightily surprised me.
"Do you think I don't see through you, Mr. Bold?" she said. "You are most desperately jealous of Mr. Cludde; you know you are; and of every other man in the room; and you show it, which is a very, very silly thing to do. Oh, don't speak; you would only tell me stories. Listen to me. Lucy is a dear friend of mine, and I know all about everything. You are a disgrace to your name, sir."
"Why, what have I done?" I asked, amazed at the sternness she had suddenly thrown into her voice. And she burst into a ripple of laughter.
"I do think you are the stupidest man alive," she said. "Is not your name Bold, and are you not timid, and backward, and humble, and despondent, and a great big baby! Why, Lucy thinks the world of you; she is never tired of hearing that red-haired man Punchard talk of you; and yet you are glum, and scowl at her, and glower at the men who are cheerful and try to amuse her, and whom she doesn't care a button for. Oh, Mr. Bold, 'tis you who ought to change your name, for to be sure you will never persuade her to change hers."
"But Dick Cludde!" I stammered, taken aback by this plain speaking.
"Is going to dance with me, sir," she said, springing up as, the dance being over, Dick came to claim her for the next.
I wandered into the governor's beautiful garden, and, pacing up and down, pondered what the lively Lucetta had said. Was it true that Lucy did not care a button for the men who courted her so assiduously? Was Lucetta seeking to make a fool of me? Did Lucy's apparent indifference mask another feeling? My thoughts made a flying circle of perplexity and I could not anywise come at a resolution.