The Venetians

by M. E. Braddon

“She’ll be parading about with that black-muzzled man, most likely. I don’t like to shoot another fellow’s bird.”

“Nonsense. She doesn’t like the black man. She didn’t want to dance with him. I am going to be Ivanhoe and rescue her from that black-bearded Templar.”

“I couldn’t quite make her out,” said Tivett. “She seemed not to want to dance with him, and yet she let him march her off. I fancy there’s an understanding between them. No doubt the puss is an arrant flirt,” said Tivett, with his little coquettish shrug, as if he were flirting himself.

Miss Marchant and Sefton, the black-bearded, came into the anteroom at the head of a procession of youths and maidens, and in the confusion made by so many couples pouring out of the big room into the small room, Vansittart contrived to waylay the lady. She dropped Sefton’s arm and turned smilingly to Tivett, and in the next moment the introduction was made, while Sefton was captured by the eldest Miss Champernowne, to whom he was engaged for the next dance.

Miss Marchant’s programme was still a blank, and she allowed Vansittart to write down his name for a couple of waltzes. There was no question now of unwritten engagements blocking the way. He gave her his arm, and they walked slowly to the ball-room, talking those commonplaces with which even the most fateful acquaintance must needs begin.

Vansittart talked of the long, cold drive; of the rooms, with their red and white panels, and vizards and other emblems of the chase; of the heat and the draughts; of the people, the faces, the frocks. Easily as she had prattled with the lively Tivett, Vansittart found her somewhat reticent, and even shy. But she waltzed delightfully, and he had never enjoyed a dance better than this dance, in which his arm was round that slender waist, and that pretty, fair head with its crystal starlets was almost level with his own, so tall and straight was she.

The waltz ended, these two dancing till the final chord, he took her for the conventional scamper through anteroom and tea-room, which communicated with each other by a canvas corridor, delightfully cool and dangerously draughty, and so back to the ball-room, where he restored her to the worthy lady in the red gown, with whom sat the younger Marchant girls, who were glad to dance one dance out of three; like those hunting men of modest pretensions who were satisfied with a day a week. They were quite aware that although tolerated by the county, and invited to garden-parties, they were not in society, and must not expect that the fine flower of the hunt, greatly in request among a majority of the fair sex, would indulge them with more than an occasional dance. Secure of an after-supper waltz with Eve, Vansittart remembered his home engagements, tore himself away from Miss Marchant, and went across the room to that galaxy of the best people in which his sister had her place. The Champernownes were wandering with their partners, but Miss Green was sitting by Lady Mandelford, and entertaining that mild old lady with the cheap cynicism which passes current for wit.

Vansittart booked himself for his second dance with Miss Green, and then went to look for the Champernownes. He found Claudia enjoying a confidential chat with Mr. Sefton in a corner of the anteroom, and avoided them both as if they had been plague-stricken.

He discovered a younger Champernowne in the tea-room, and offered himself for those dances so lightly promised in the morning. She had kept some numbers open for him. He went to the other sister and wrote his name on her programme for other two waltzes, and this, with his number on Miss Green’s programme, and the two still owing to Claudia, left him a very poor chance of sitting out a dance or two with Miss Marchant. He pined for one quiet quarter of an hour of confidential talk with her. He wanted to make friends with her; so that she should prattle to him as freely as she had prattled to little Tivett.

That golden opportunity did not come till late in the evening. His dance with Claudia Champernowne came at just the hour when all the best people were pouring into the supper-room. When their waltz was over he could not avoid asking her to go in to supper, and she promptly accepted.