“It is the man I am dancing with—he went to fetch me an ice,” she said hurriedly. “I don’t want him to see me being scolded,” and her voice sounded as if she were going to cry.
Madelene hated scenes, and still more did she hate any exposure to strangers of family affairs. She instantly drew back.
“I shall take care that your partner does not see me,” she said. “But I shall look out for you in the tea-room after this dance. Ermine will be there too.”
There was no time for Ella to reply. Miss St Quentin had no difficulty in concealing herself. She just stepped quietly behind a clump of high and thick-growing plants in the corner, where the light was not strong, and her dress being black, no one would have noticed her unless they had been directly looking for her.
A moment after, she heard a voice addressing her sister.
“Here is the ice—at least it is a cup of iced coffee. Will that do as well, Miss Wyn—?”
It seemed to Madelene that the new-comer rather slurred over the name; it was the case that he did so, for he had heard it but indistinctly, and Ella, in no hurry to be revealed to her sisters, had not cared to set the mystification right. But—Madelene scarcely noticed what he said, in her surprise at recognising Ella’s partner as her cousin Philip! For a moment or two, she could not understand it. Then again she gradually recollected that it was perfectly possible he did not know Ella—he had never seen her; he had probably been introduced to her by some one who had no idea who she really was. Madelene had already seen and talked to Philip, who had hastened his return from the north in order to be present at the Belvoirs’ dance. He was to spend the night with his present hosts and “surprise” his grandmother by appearing at Cheynesacre in the course of the following afternoon, some days sooner than she was expecting him. For neither he nor his cousins had the slightest, the very slightest, notion that such a move on the old lady’s part as she had executed with Ella in her train was possible.
“Thank you, thank you very much. Yes of course it will do—much better than a regular ice, for I can drink it off in a moment, and I do so want to lose no more of this lovely waltz,” Madelene next heard her sister reply.
“She is eager to get out of my way,” she thought, “and what wonder? But I am not going to make a scene, you need not be afraid, Ella. Philip evidently does not know her. It must all be told him afterwards. How disgraceful it seems! And just when we wanted her to have made a good impression on him—he will be utterly horrified. Oh! I wish I could see Ermine.”
The voices had ceased. Ella and her partner had left the conservatory. Madelene made her way to the entrance and then, glancing round to make sure they were not standing about anywhere close at hand, hurriedly crossed the ball-room to the room where Ermine was to meet her.