'Mr. Herring,' said Orange, 'a gentleman is needed to make up a set. May I introduce you to Miss Bowdler?'
Of course he must dance, and dance with the fascinating Bowdler—a thin young lady, with harshly red hair, red eyelashes, a freckled skin, and eyes that had been boiled in soda. Miss Bowdler was the daughter of a banker, an heiress, and Trecarrel had thought of her, but could not make up his mind to the colourless eyes and red lashes.
Herring danced badly. His thoughts were not in the figures, nor with his partner. He mistook the figures. He spoke of the weather, and had nothing else to say. Miss Bowdler considered him a stupid young man, and that this quadrille was the very dullest in which she had danced. When it was over, he returned to the window, and as there was an end of the settee unoccupied, and the rest of it was occupied by the chemist's niece and a raw acquaintance to whom she was telling the story of the highest in the land—'And when I say the highest, I mean the highest,'—and his seidlitz, Herring was able to take his place at the window without being obliged to speak to anyone. He looked again into the moonlight, and towards the dark woods of Werrington, still revolving in his mind the question, What was to become ef Mirelle? He saw that she would take the matter into her own hands and insist on being allowed to go elsewhere. She could not remain in a house where the son was allowed to treat her with insolence. She would like to return to France, to her dear convent of the Sacré Coeur. The thought was dreadful to Herring, for it implied that he should never see her again.
He fancied, whilst thus musing, that he heard voices on the terrace, and next that he caught Sampson Tramplara's tones. He did not give much attention to the sounds, till he heard distinctly the bell-like voice of Mirelle, 'Let go this instant, sir!'
He sprang to his feet and was outside the window in a moment. He had been sitting looking in the opposite direction from that in which he heard the voices; now he turned in the direction of the garden house.
At the door of this summer-house he saw young Tramplara, and the white form of Mirelle. The moon was on her, and her head sparkled with the diamonds of her coronet, but there was no corresponding sparkle about her neck.
Herring flew to the spot, and saw that young Sampson had snatched the necklet from her throat. The diamond chain hung twinkling from his hand.
'Restore that instantly,' said Herring, catching the young man's hand at the wrist. 'You scoundrel, what are you about?'
'Keep off, will you!' said the cub. 'I should like to know your right to interfere between me and my cousin, Mirie Strange. I only want to test the stones of her chain. The chaps in the dancing-room say they be paste and a cussed sham. I reckon their mothers have put them up to it. I've got a bet on with young Croker, and I want to try if they'll scratch glass, that is all. So now will you remove your hand and take yourself off?'
Herring doubled up Tramplara's hand, and wrenched the necklace from it.