Their fans flew up, their heads dipped, then Elsin rose and asked indulgence, taking my arm, one hand lying in Lady Coleville's hand.
"Do you and Sir Peter talk over it together," she said, with a lingering wistfulness in her voice. "I shall dance with Carus, whether he will or no, and then we'll walk and talk. You may tell Sir Peter, if you so desire."
"All?" asked Lady Coleville, retaining Elsin's hand.
"All, madam, for it concerns all."
Sir Henry Clinton came to wait on Lady Coleville, and so we left them, slowly moving out through the brilliant sea of silks and laces, her arm resting close in mine, her fair head bent in silent meditation.
Around us swelled the incessant tumult of the ball, music and the blended harmony of many voices, rustle and whisper of skirt and silk, and the swish! swish! of feet across the vast waxed floor.
"Shall we dance?" I asked pleasantly.
She looked up, then out across the ocean of glitter and restless color.
"Now I am in two minds," she said—"to dance until there's no breath left and but a wisp of rags to cover me, or to sip a syllabub with you and rest, or go gaze at the heavens the while you court me——"
"That's three minds already," I said, laughing.