The common opinion of Cacouna had undoubtedly been that Mr. Percy—the Honourable Edward Percy, whose name was in the Peerage—would dance the first quadrille with Mrs. Bellairs. But sovereigns are permitted to be capricious, especially female ones, and the Queen of Cacouna was not above the weaknesses of her class. Perhaps Mr. Percy—who was certainly bored himself—bored her a little. At any rate she signified her intention of bestowing her hand upon an elderly gentleman, the owner of the house, to whom, as she said, they were so much indebted for his kindness in allowing them to metamorphose it as they had done.
The gentleman, thus left at liberty to choose his own partner, found his eyes turning naturally to Lucia; but before he had quite made up his mind, Maurice came up to her.
"Lucia," he said, "I shall be obliged to give up my quadrille. It is a great nuisance; but keep the next for me, will you not?"
She nodded and smiled, and he hurried off.
Mr. Percy still stood undecided. His cousin touched him on the shoulder, "Are not you going to dance?" he asked.
"I suppose so," with the slightest possible shrug. "Miss Costello, if you are disengaged, will you dance this quadrille with me?"
Lucia turned when he spoke. The same deep crimson flush came to her face as when their eyes had first met that morning. She felt angry with him for asking her, and with Maurice for having left her free. She longed to say to him some of the civil impertinences women can use to men they dislike, but she was too great a novice, and found no better expedient than to accept the invitation as coolly as it was given. Probably, however, Mr. Percy attributed her blush to a cause very different from its real one; or else there was something soothing and agreeable in finding himself in possession of incomparably the prettiest partner in the room, for he began almost immediately to feel less bored, and positively roused himself to the extent of making some exertion to please his reluctant companion.
Now, it was all very well for Lucia to be cross, and to nurse her crossness to the last possible minute, but a girl of sixteen, however pretty and however spoiled, is not generally gifted with sufficient strength of mind or badness of temper, to remain quite insensible to the good qualities of a handsome man, who evidently wishes to make himself agreeable to her. When the man in question is the lion of the day, probably his success becomes inevitable; at all events, Lucia gradually recovered her good humour, and kept up her part of the broken chat possible under the circumstances, with enough grace and spirit to give to her extraordinary beauty the last crowning charm which Percy had not, until then, found in it.
Thus they finished their quadrille in good humour with each other, but as they left their place to rejoin Mrs. Bellairs, Maurice Leigh came into the room by a side door. The sight of him reminded Mr. Percy of the short dialogue he had heard.
"You are engaged for the next quadrille, are you not?" he asked Lucia.