"I did not mean to be cross," she said. "I thought—that is, I had been looking—that is——"
Here she stopped, feeling herself get deeper and deeper into difficulty. Her countenance changed from the girlish freshness of complexion, which everybody admired, into a burning red; her eyelids unable to keep up, her heart beating as if it would burst through silk slip, and tarlatan bouillonée, and all——
"Come, let us have this dance. I like the music," said Edward, drawing her hand suddenly through his arm.
"But I am engaged."
"Oh, never mind, if you are engaged. You were engaged to me before ever you came," he said, lightly, and drew her into the whirl. Hester was at the age (in society), when, to throw over a partner, looks like the guiltiest treachery. She could not take any pleasure in the dance, for thought of it.
"I must go and ask his pardon. I am sure I am very sorry. I did not intend to be so false; and there he is, poor man, not dancing."
These words Hester said breathless over the shoulder of the enterprising intruder, who had carried her off under the victim's eyes.
"Poor man!" Edward echoed, with a laugh. "I am glad he has nobody to dance with. What right had he to engage you? and you regret him; and you don't want me."
Here Hester rebuked her cousin.
"You have no right to say so. I might want—I mean I might like very well to dance with you when you condescended to ask me; but not to be run away with, without a word, and made to do a false thing. False things are what I hate."