As one handsome girl after another came in, all more or less beautifully attired, bright with smiles and glittering with jewels, Goring looked on the groups that gathered wistfully as one in a dream, thinking where at that precise time was she who might have outshone them all—in his eyes at least.
The great dancing-room was some ninety feet long, and its walls were hung with many old family portraits, between which were vacant spaces once occupied by the Rubens, Titians, Vandycks, and other really valuable pictures, all of which had been sold in the lifetime of Jerry's father—perhaps before the fatal mortgages had been contracted.
In a corridor beyond was the band of the Wilmothurst Rifle Volunteers to furnish music for the dancers, who speedily began to arrange themselves, while the programme cards were fast filling up.
Under the watchful eyes of his mother and his cousin Emily, Jerry inscribed his name more than once upon that of Bella Chevenix, but took care that it should be for dances further on in the night.
Jerry opened the ball with the Countess of Ashcombe, the 'head lady' of the evening, after which he went near her no more, or—as his mother phrased it—'neglected her shamefully for that Chevenix girl,' whose father stood apart in a corner watching with fondness and admiration the beauty of Bella, the grace with which she floated through a succession of waltzes, and seemed to be enjoying herself to the full, especially when she had her first dance with Jerry, who eventually brought her panting and breathless to the side of her father, just as the latter was addressing Lady Wilmot, who chanced to be near him.
'The young fellows of our time, my lady,' said he, in a fidgety way, feeling the necessity for saying something, 'were better at this sort of work than those of the present; they don't seem equal to dancing, somehow.'
'I do not understand you, Mr. Chevenix,' said Lady Wilmot, with one of her calm stares.
'I mean that we fogies saw something like dancing at country balls in our time; what "Sir Rogers" we danced, cross hands and down the middle, and all that sort of thing, before, as now, we became anxious about draughts and damp linen, and all that sort of thing, my lady.'
Lady Wilmot smiled disdainfully, and found herself looking as if she failed to comprehend him.
'Yes,' said Jerry, uncomfortably, 'Hampshire people did cling to these fashions, Mr. Chevenix, and, when they danced, meant it in no mistake.'