'Nay, Leslie; I have already won her,' interrupted Falconer, a little triumphantly.
'Well—all the better; and if the girl loved me as she loves you, and as Annabelle tells me, I would have her in spite of all the guardians in Scotland!'
But there was no answering smile in the face of Cecil, who remembered how his last visit to the house of Sir Piers ended, and the summary manner in which the old man rang the bell to have him shown out!
And now for a time he remained among the crowd of men—the inert or uninterested—who hovered about the doorway, critically watching the dancers, and he heard Mary again and again praised, as she swept past in a succession of waltzes. The genuine praises of some delighted him; but there were occasional off-hand remarks that made him inclined to punch more than one head.
'Not a bad-looking girl at all,' lisped a Lancer; 'wish she wouldn't lay on the powder so freely, though.'
'Powder!' said Bickerton of that Ilk, a well-browned young fellow in the blue-and-gold-laced uniform of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, 'the devil a pinch of powder is there!'
'By Jove! to my mind, her dress is very chic. Regent Street couldn't turn out a better! Who the deuce is she?' asked another lounger.
'Oh! the daughter of Sir Piers Montgomerie,' replied some one whose information was vague; 'an old general officer—no end of money, and has refused no end of eligibles, and non-eligibles, alike.'
'Get me an introduction, won't you?'
'Well, perhaps—but her card has been full no doubt an hour ago.'