And Susan heard her own voice. Her head was spinning; she was talking against her will.
"Why did you never come back and dance with me?" she was asking. It seemed to her that there was a long pause, and then his answer came, low and close.
"I did not dare," he said.
"Oh," she said piteously;—no, not she, but the imprudent, tired girl whose head was giddy, and who did not know what she said. "Oh,—how funny!"
Perhaps he was throwing dust in people's eyes,—trying to blind them to his fluttering, like a burnt moth, round Julia. If they saw him sitting up here in a corner with her, and she was happy, they would think there was nothing in it. He must be trying to make her laugh. Well, she must help him. She could say something funny too.
"There's a man downstairs," she told him, "who asked me to marry him."
"What?" said Barnaby. He started as if he had been shot.
"He said he loved me," she repeated. "He wished me to go away and release you and marry him."
"Who?"
"You were with the only woman you ever cared for. That was what he said. I had nobody to keep him away from me...."