"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."
She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with their perfumed petals.
"I like you better than any man here," she said suddenly.
A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder impulse.
"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your acquaintance?"
"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"
"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the salt of the sea—and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the same of you now."
A pale blush flitted over her cheeks, and she dropped him a demure curtsy.
"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"
"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."