Even with an ill grace did he draw back her chair: his eyes straying across the table, where Blanche Vernon was filing past in the string of departing guests.
But a glance given by the latter, after clearing the épergne, more than repaid him for the frown upon Lady Mary’s face, as she swept away from his side!
Chapter Forty Nine.
The Dance.
The gentlemen stayed but a short while over their wine. The twanging of harp-strings and tuning of violins, heard outside, told that their presence was required in the drawing-room—whither Sir George soon conducted them.
During the two hours spent at dinner, a staff of domestics had been busy in the drawing-room. The carpets had been taken up, and the floor waxed almost to an icy smoothness. The additional guests had arrived; and were grouped over it, waiting for the music to begin.
There is no dance so delicious as that of the drawing-room—especially in an English country house. There is a pleasant home-feeling about it, unknown to the crush of the public ball—be it “county” or “hunt.”
It is full of mystic imaginations—recalling Sir Roger de Coverley, and those dear olden times of supposed Arcadian innocence.