“Hallo!” he said. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Oh, Jeremy, do wait a moment.” She looked at him piteously.
“Well, what is it?”
“Come out here for a moment. Please do.”
He did not want to hurt her, but this pause was an agony to him.
“What is it?” he asked crossly when they were in the hall outside the ballroom.
“Oh, Jeremy, it’s all so horrid. Do dance with me. One little boy danced with me and then his mother tried to make him dance again and he wouldn’t, and I’m sure it wasn’t my fault, because I danced much better than he did. And then Herbert said he could dance and he couldn’t, and we fell down and he didn’t seem to mind at all; but I minded because everyone laughed and I tore my dress. And there hasn’t been anybody to dance with for ever so long, and Helen’s been dancing all the time. . . . Oh, Jeremy, do dance with me! I do love dancing so, and you haven’t danced with me all the evening.”
It was true that he had not, but oh! how he wished her at the other end of England at that moment! She looked so foolish with her hair all over the place and her dress untidy, her sash pulled round the wrong way and her stockings wrinkled. And every moment was precious. She would be looking for him, wondering where he was, thinking him mean thus to break his promise when she had given him so especial a favour.
At that thought he started away.
“No, no, Mary. Later on we’ll have a dance, two if you like. But not now. I can’t, really.”