Poor Kate! She knew that the paternal eye, severely set, was upon her. She remembered that painful promise.
Not a word passed between the parties. Scarce a moment stood they together. Herbert, stung by Kate’s salutation—unexpectedly cold, almost insultingly distant—warped his arm around the waist of his willing partner, and spun off through the unobservant crowd.
Though often again upon that same night Smythje and Kate, Herbert and the Jewess were respectively partners—so often as to lead to general observation—never again did the four stand vis-à-vis or side by side. Whenever chance threatened to bring them together, design, or something like it, stepped in to thwart the approximation!
Almost all the night did Herbert dance with the Jewess—no longer with despondency in his look, but with the semblance of a gay and reckless joy. Never had Judith received from the young Englishman such ardent attention; and for the first time since their introduction to each other did she feel conscious of something like a correspondence to her own fierce love. For the moment her proud, cruel heart became dissolved to a true feminine tenderness; and in the spiral undulations of the waltz, as she coiled round the robust form of her partner, her cheek rested upon his shoulder, as if laid there to expire in the agony of an exquisite bliss.
She stayed not to question the cause of Herbert’s devotedness. Her own heart, blinded by love, and yearning for reciprocity, threw open its portals to receive the passion without challenge or scrutiny—without knowing whether it was real or only apparent.
A wild anguish would she have experienced at that moment, could she have divined what was passing in Herbert’s mind. Little did she suspect that his devotedness to her was only a demonstration intended to act upon another. Little dreamt she that real love for another was the cause and origin of that counterfeit that was deceiving herself. Happily for her heart’s peace she knew not this.
Herbert alone knew it. As the kaleidoscope evolved the dazzling dancers one after another, often did the face of Kate Vaughan flit before the eyes of her cousin, and his before her eyes. On such occasions, the glance hastily exchanged was one of defiant indifference: for both were playing at piques! The cold salutation had given him the cue, ignorant as he was of its cause. She had begun the game only a little later—on observing the attitude of extreme contentment which Herbert had assumed towards his companion. She knew not that it was studied. Her skill in coquetry, although sufficient for the pretence of indifference, was not deep enough to discern it in him; and both were now behaving as if each believed the love of the other beyond all hope.
Before abandoning the ball-room, this belief—erroneous as it might be on both sides—received further confirmation. A circumstance arose that strengthened it to a full and perfect conviction.
From the gossip of a crowded ball-room many a secret may be learnt. In those late hours, when the supper champagne has untied the tongue, and dancers begin to fancy each other deaf, he who silently threads his way or stands still among the crowd, may catch many a sentence not intended to be overheard, and often least of all by himself. Many an involuntary eavesdropper has fallen into this catastrophe. At least two instances occurred at the Smythje hall; and to the two individuals in whom, perhaps, we are most interested—Herbert and Kate Vaughan.
Herbert for a moment was alone. Judith, not that she had tired of her partner, but perhaps only to save appearances, was dancing with another. It was not Smythje, whom all the evening she had studiously avoided. She remembered the incident on the Jumbé Rock; and feared that dancing with him might conduct to a similar disposition of partners as that which had occurred on the day of the eclipse.