“You, then, are engaged for the whole evening, I suppose?” said Edmund.
“Oh, no! only for the next set.”
“Then, will you dance the one after with me?”
“Certainly! and Frances the one after that. But I am so sorry,” she added, “that you have not been dancing all the time.”
At this instant, Lord Borrowdale snatched up her hand, as the music indicated the moment, and led her forward again to perform some new evolution of the dance. When the music ceased, Julia said something to Lady Susan: and, on receiving her reply and smile, looked towards Edmund, and telegraphed the smile with the yes it implied. Our hero was accustomed in his own profession to understanding and obeying signals; he, therefore, stepped forward, requested the honour of Lady Susan’s hand for the next set, and received a ready assent.
The music now commenced a waltz tune, and Lord Morven immediately began to wheel himself round and round, and holding up his arms in a circular position, to approach Julia.
“Just one round of the room!” he cried; “pray do!”
Edmund’s heart stopped beating to await her reply, while one foot was unconsciously advanced at the moment, as if to avert the apprehended catastrophe. Julia laughed at the many entreating attitudes Lord Morven thought fit to assume, but shook her head, and answered, “No! no!” on which his lordship seized his sister, Lady Susan, in his arms, and whirled her round and round the room.
“It would, I fear,” said Lord Borrowdale, addressing our heroine, with affected humility, “be too great presumption in me, after Morven’s discomfiture, to think of changing your ladyship’s determination?” Julia declined. “Morven,” proceeded his lordship, “certainly has no right to esteem himself quite irresistible, notwithstanding the present favourable juncture of his stars. In a day or two, at farthest, this gay monopolizer of all that is brightest and loveliest, must, I understand, withdraw from Cupid’s lists, and confess himself a mere married man!”
Edmund, though he heard not a word of what Frances was very kindly saying to him about not having danced, yet heard every word of Lord Borrowdale’s speech. All the blood in his system seemed to rush to his face, it suffused even his forehead, and mounted to the very roots of his hair. “In a day or two! In a day or two!” he repeated to himself. “So public, so ascertained a thing, that other men think themselves at liberty to speak to her on the subject in this free and careless manner!”