For Molly had become in the weeks of her sojourn here one of the belles of the place, and was enjoying her prestige with all the ardor of youth and a light heart. No one was more sought in the dance than she, no one had more bouquets and invitations, and she would not have owned to herself that pique lay at the bottom of her gayety.
Her girlish pride had been cruelly wounded by Cecil Laurens’ sarcastic words, and a strange longing came over her to know if they were really true.
“Would it indeed be such poor taste for any one to love me?” she asked herself, soberly; and the gravity of the thought turned the child into a woman.
She threw aside the carelessness that had distinguished her, and put on what she called grown-up ways. As she had a good education, and a high order of intellect, she succeeded in making the change very striking and charming, and in less than two weeks disproved the truth of the ungallant Cecil’s assertion.
On his part, he was astonished when, after two weeks of sulky exile, he saw her again, the cynosure of all eyes at this famous resort of fashion, bright, beautiful, and admired, as he had not believed it possible for any one to admire the will-o’-the-wisp creature, as she had always seemed to him, even while she drew him to her side by a charm which he would not understand.
“But she is beautiful, certainly, and very brilliant here—most unlike the forlorn creature that Hero threw over his head that night at my feet,” he said to himself with a smile, followed by a frown—the smile for the ludicrousness of the adventure, and the frown for the secret that lay behind that night’s “lark,” as she called it—the escapade so carefully hidden from her aunt.
“I had no right to keep it hidden from my old friend. I wish I had not promised to do so,” he thought, vexed at the sight of Molly gliding like a fairy down the long ball-room in the arms of as handsome a partner as ever made maiden’s heart throb faster in the gay waltz.
Mrs. Barry saw his eyes following the light form, and said with a touch of pride:
“Louise is a graceful waltzer?”
“Yes,” he answered, then a little testily: “But I do not approve of indiscriminate waltzing for young ladies.”