For some moments after she had taken her seat Urith was unable to see anything. The tears of shame and disappointment filled her eyes, and she was afraid of being observed to wipe them away.
But Bessie took her hand, and pressed it, and said, "No wonder you were agitated at this first appearance in company. No one will think anything of it, no doubt they will say you are a young and modest bride. There, do not be discouraged; the same would have happened to me in your circumstances. What—must I?"
The last words were addressed to Fox, who came up to ask her to dance with him. She would gladly have excused herself, but that she thought a dance was owing to him for his courtesy in coming to Hall to accompany her.
"I am not inclined for more than one or two turns this evening," she said to Fox; "for there are many here younger than I, and I would not take from them the dances they enjoy so much more than myself."
As the tears dried without falling in Urith's eyes, and her heart beat less tumultuously, she was able to look about her, and seek and find Anthony.
It was with a stab of pain in her heart that she saw him with Julian. They were talking together with animation, her great eyes were fixed on him, and he bent his head over her. Urith knew the heart of Julian—knew the disappointed love, the rage that consumed it; and she wondered at her husband for singling this girl out as his partner. Then she reproached herself; for, she argued, that this heart, with its boiling sea of passion, had been revealed to her, not to him. He was unconscious of it.
Urith followed him and Julian everywhere; noted the changes in his countenance when she spoke; felt a twinge of anguish when, for a moment, both their eyes met hers, and they said something to each other and laughed. Had they laughed at her awkwardness in the opening dance?
Elizabeth passed before her on Fox's arm, and, as they did so, she heard Fox say, "Yes, your brother is content now that he is with Julian. You can't root old love out with a word."
Bessie winced, turned sharply round, and looked at Urith, in the hope that this ill-considered speech had not been heard by her. But a glance showed that Urith had not been deaf: her colour had faded to an ashen white, and a dead film had formed over her sombre eyes, like cat-ice on a pool.
Bessie drew her partner away, and said, with agitated voice, "You should not have spoken thus—within earshot of Urith."