MARY DALLORY
The guests waited in the drawing-room. Madam, with gracious suavity, was bestowing her smiles on all, after her manner in society, her white silk dress gleaming with richness. A slight frown crossed her brow, however, at the tardy entrance of her son and Richard North.
"We have waited for you," she said rather sharply. "Dinner has been announced."
Richard found his father did not intend to be present, and that he must act as host, which was nothing new. Glancing round the room, he was advancing to Miss Dallory--there was no married lady present excepting madam--when madam's voice rang out cold and clear.
"Take in Miss Field, Richard. Arthur, you will conduct Miss Dallory."
Now that was wrong according to the rules of etiquette. Miss Dallory, the great heiress, whose family was of some note in the county, should have fallen to Richard: Miss Field, a middle-aged lady, had only been Matilda North's governess. But madam had a way of enforcing her own commands: or, rather, of letting people know they might not be disputed. There was a moment's awkwardness: Richard and Arthur both stood with arrested footsteps; and then each advanced to the appointed lady. But Miss Dallory nearly upset it all: she turned from Captain Bohun to Richard, her hand outstretched.
"How do you do, Mr. North?"
He clasped it for a moment. Madam, who had a shrewd way of making guesses, and of seeing things that no one else saw, had gathered an idea long ago, that had Richard North's fortunes been in the ascendant, he might have forgotten the wide gulf separating him from Mary Dallory--she patrician-born, he plebeian--and asked her to step over it.
"I did not know you had returned, Miss Dallory, until a few minutes age," said Richard.
"No! I have been home two days."