Philip in his despair was so wanting in politeness as to turn his back upon the elders and more important people.
"If you go flirting about with Murray and Alec Bannerman you will just drive me desperate," he said.
"What would your lordship like me to do?" said Katie. "Sit in a corner and look as if I were going to cry? I will not do that, to please anybody. I have come to enjoy myself, and, if I cannot do it in one way, I will in another."
"Oh, Katie, have a little pity upon me, when you know I cannot help myself," the unfortunate lover said.
"I will make everybody believe that there's nothing in it," said Katie, "your mother and all. And is not that the best thing I can do for you?"
She was radiant in mischief and contradiction, inexorable, holding her little head high, ready to defy Mrs. Stormont and every authority. Poor Philip knew she would flirt to distraction with every man that crossed her path while he was dancing quadrilles with the dowagers, and doing what his mother thought his duty. But at that moment among a crowd of new arrivals came the countess herself, and Katie had to be swept away by the current. Amuse herself! She might do it, or anyone else might do it: but as for the hero of the occasion, poor fellow, that was the last possibility that was likely to come to him. He walked through the quadrille with the countess, looking like a mute at a funeral, and as, fortunately, she was a woman of discretion, she gave him her sincerest sympathy.
"I think you might have dispensed with this ceremony," she said. "But don't look so miserable, it will soon be over."
"I miserable! Oh, no; though I confess I don't care for square dances," Philip said.
"Nobody does," said the lady, "but still you should show a little philosophy. Who is that little espiègle that is laughing at us?"
She laughed in sympathy, being a very good-natured woman, but Philip did not laugh; for of course it was Katie, radiant with mischievous smiles, upon the arm of Mr. Alec Bannerman, with whom she was to "take the floor" at once, as soon as this solemnity was over. By the glance she gave him, touching the card which swung from her fan, he divined that she had filled up that document, and had not a dance left: and for the rest of the melancholy performance the countess could not extract a word from him. Of his two tyrants, Katie was the worst. There was no telling the torture to which she subjected him as the evening went on. She was an admirable dancer; as airy as a feather, adapting herself to everybody's step, or in the intervals of the dances, during the other quadrille, which absolutely put Philip's sanity in danger, teaching her own in a corner to an intending partner. And her flirtations were endless.