"Yes, to Maurice. I promised it to him instead of the first."
"You were to have danced this one with him, then?"
She laughed. "It is a childish arrangement of ours," she said; "we agreed, long ago, always to dance the first quadrille together, and everybody knows of it, so no one asks me for that."
"I wonder at his being willing to miss his privilege to-night; you must be very indulgent, not to punish him."
"Oh! you know he is acting as a kind of steward to-night and has so many things to do. It was not his fault."
"And you would have waited patiently for him?"
"Patiently? I don't know. Certainly I should have waited, for no one but a stranger would have asked me to dance."
"I hope, however, you forgive me."
They had reached Mrs. Bellair's, and she only answered by a smile as she sat down. A minute after, she was carried off by another partner, and Mr. Percy took possession of the vacant place.
The evening passed on. At the end of it, Mr. Percy, shut up in his own room, surprised himself in the midst of a reverie the subject of which was Lucia Costello; he actually found himself comparing her with a certain Lady Adeliza Weymouth, of whom he had been supposed to be épris the season before. But then Lady Adeliza had no particular claim to beauty; she was "distinguished" and of a powerful family; as for Lucia, on the other hand, she was——There! it was no use going off into that question. A great deal more sense to go to bed.