"Curse him!" muttered Desmond under his breath. "Well—was that all?"
She shook her head with a rueful smile.
"I don't half like telling you, Theo; you look so stern. I'm afraid you'll be very angry."
"Not with you, dear. Go on."
"Well, I told him I didn't see it that way at all, and he said of course not; butterflies never did see that people had any right to catch them; yet they got caught all the same. Then he took tight hold of my hands, and came so close to me that—I was frightened, and asked him to take me back to the ballroom at once. He said it wasn't fair, that the whole twelve minutes belonged to him, and he wouldn't be cheated out of any of it. Then when I was getting up to go away, he—he laughed, and put his arm round me, so that I couldn't move, though I tried to—I did, truly."
At that her husband's arm went round her, and she yielded with a sigh of satisfaction to its protective pressure.
"The brute didn't dare to—kiss you, did he, Ladybird?"
"Oh, no—no. The music began, and some people came by, and he had to let me go. Do men often behave like that at balls, Theo?"
"Well—no; not the right sort!" Desmond answered, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. "But there's always a good sprinkling of the wrong sort in a crowd of this kind, and the stewards ought to be more careful."