This may sound hard treatment to be dealt out to a friend, and, indeed, I fear that though outwardly calm, and even polite to exaggeration, my indignation had somewhat run away with me. Had I any excuse? Yes; two eyes that, as I have said, were bright as the dew, and a smile not to be resisted.
She danced divinely, she let me clasp her hand tenderly yet firmly, and she smiled at me when she was dancing with others. I noticed once or twice when we danced together that Lumme also smiled at her, but I was convinced she did not reply to this. In fact, his whole conduct seemed to me merely presumptuous and impertinent. How mine seemed to him I cannot tell you.
He had secured the advantage of engaging several dances before I had time to interfere, and also possessed one other—a scarlet evening-coat, the uniform of the hunt. But I glanced in the mirror, and said to myself that I did not grudge him this adornment, while as for my fewer number of dances, I found my partner quite willing to allow me others to which I was not legally entitled. In this way I obtained number thirteen, to the detriment of Mr. Tonks, and was just prepared to embark upon number fourteen when Lumme approached us with an air I did not approve of.
“This is my dance,” he said, in a manner inexcusable in the presence of a lady.
“Pardon,” I replied. “It is mine.”
Miss Hudson looked from one to the other of us with a delightfully perplexed expression, but, I fear, with a little wickedness in her brown eye.
“What am I to do?” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders.