She flashed on him a quick, all-comprehensive look of scrutiny, then bowed with a gracious smile, and gave him her hand. During the dance, Dick made use of every possible occasion to comment jocularly upon passing incidents and persons, and the lady invariably answered with a smile or a merry remark, so that Dick was soon vastly pleased with his partner and himself.
After the dance, having led her to a seat, and as she would have no refreshments brought, he stood chatting with her. Lord George came up and greeted both, and continued talking to them familiarly, assuming, from the fact of her having granted Dick a dance in a public assembly, that they already knew each other. In the course of the talk, Lord George frequently addressed Dick by his name, and the lady by hers, so that, before long, Mr. Wetheral and Miss Mallby were so addressing one another. It developed, through Lord George's inquiries after her family, that her father was Sir Charles Mallby, of Kent, whose town house was in Grosvenor Square.
While the three were talking, Dick noticed an elegantly dressed young gentleman standing near, who regarded them with a peculiarly sullen expression.
"Why does that gentleman look at us so sourly?" asked Dick, innocently, of Lord George.
"La!" said Miss Mallby, smiling, and coloring. "Tis Lord Alderby."
Lord George smiled, and proposed that Dick should come with him to meet somebody or other; whereupon the two gentlemen, one of them very reluctantly, left Miss Mallby, who was then immediately joined by the surly-looking Lord Alderby.
"They've had a lovers' quarrel," explained Lord George to Dick, "which accounts for her comporting herself so amiably to us. Her gaiety with other gentlemen this evening has turned Alderby quite green with jealousy. Now that we have left the way open for him, he'll humiliate himself as abjectly as he must, for a reconciliation. Egad, what a thing it is to be the slave of an heiress!"
"Why," said Dick, his spirits suddenly damped, "I flattered myself her amiability to me was on my own account."
"Oh," said his lordship, with an amused look that escaped Dick, "so that's how the wind blows! Well, who knows but you are right? She may have tired of Alderby's sulks. 'Tis a rich prize, by Jove,—the Lord knows how many thousand a year! We shall certainly call at Grosvenor Square to-morrow."
What young man can honestly blame Dick for clinging to the belief that the radiant Miss Mallby's graciousness to him had another cause than the wish to pique Lord Alderby; or for supposing himself equal to the rôle of a lord's rival for the love of a great heiress? The romantic notion that love levels all, was no new one in Dick's time, and had often been exemplified. To win fortune by marriage was then held to be an entirely honorable act, calling for no reproach. Dick had no intention of deceiving the lady. But he would wait until her love was certainly his, before disclosing who and what he was. Once his, her love would not be altered by the unimportant circumstances that he was an American and penniless. Splendid was the future of which Dick dreamed that night,—a future of fair estates and great city residences, of coaches and footmen, of fine clothes, card playing, music, and dancing.