"Oh, Mrs. Mornington," groaned the youth, as he strolled off, "what a life you lead us! I hope you don't call this hospitality."
"Am I not at least to be introduced to Miss Vincent, the heroine of the evening?" asked Allan.
"The heroine of the evening is behaving very badly," said Mrs. Mornington. "I don't think I'll ever give a summer dance again. I wish it had rained cats and dogs. Look at the dancing-room, half empty. Those young people are all meandering about the garden, picking my finest roses, I dare say, just to tear them to pieces in the game of 'he loves me, loves me not.'"
"What better use could be made of a garden and roses? As long as you have only the true lovers, and no Mephistopheles or Martha, your garden is another Eden. But I must insist upon being introduced to Miss Vincent before the evening is over."
"I will do my best," said Mrs. Mornington, and then in a lower voice she told him that she had ordered her niece to keep a late number open for his name. "She is a very nice girl, and I think you are a nice young man, and I should like you to know each other," concluded the lady with her bluff straightforwardness.
Mr. Mornington and an elderly stranger, with iron-grey hair and iron-grey moustache, came across the hall at this moment.
"Ah, here is my brother!" cried Mrs. Mornington. "Robert, I want to introduce Mr. Carew to you. He is a new neighbour, but a great favourite of mine."
Allan stopped in the hall for about a quarter of an hour talking to General Vincent and Mr. Mornington, and then he, too, was called to order by his hostess, and was marched into the dancing-room to be introduced to a Dresden-china young lady, pink and white and blue-eyed, like Saxony porcelain, who had been brought by somebody, and who was a stranger in the land.
He waltzed with this young creature, who was pretty and daintily dressed, and who asked him various questions about Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, evidently with the idea that she was adapting her conversation to the locality. When the dance was over, she refused his offer of an ice, and suggested a turn in the garden; so Allan found himself among the meanderers under the moonlit sky; but there was no plucking of roses or murmuring of "Loves me not, loves me, loves me not," no thought of Gretchen's impassioned love-dream as the Dresden-china young lady and he promenaded solemnly up and down the broad gravel terrace in front of the open windows, still conversing sagely about Salisbury Cathedral and the decoration of the Chapter House.
While parading slowly up and down, Allan found his attention wandering every now and then from the young lady at his side to another young lady who passed and repassed with an elderly cavalier. A tall, slim young lady, with black hair and eyes, a pale brunette complexion, and an elegant simplicity of dress and chevelure which Allan at once recognized as Parisian. No English girl, he thought, ever had that air of being more plainly dressed than other girls, and yet more distinguished and fashionable. He had seen no frock like this girl's frock, but he felt assured that she was dressed in that Parisian fashion which is said to antedate London fashion by a twelvemonth.