A strange thought came over Chrissy. She did not wish Corrie, in her white crape and French ribbons, and so tall and straight and fair, to be blighted in her beauty—no, not for a moment. But Chrissy was cruel enough to cherish a passing wish that, by some instantaneous transformation, Bourhope might be pitted with smallpox, or scarred with gunpowder, or have premature age brought upon him as with the wave of a wand—the soul within being left unchanged, however.
Mrs. Spottiswoode, unlike Chrissy, was quite alive to the practical. She remarked everything with keen eyes, and determined now to be at the bottom of the business. She should either go in and win triumphantly, or take a sudden tack and sail away with flying colours, as if she had never entertained the most distant intention of coming to close quarters, and thus give the impression that she never had any intention of promoting a match between Bourhope and Corrie.
Mrs. Spottiswoode thought Bourhope looked as if he were going to do something desperate. His first blunder had been to hand, or rather lift, Chrissy into the chaise instead of Corrie, at starting from their own door. He repeated the unaccountable blunder at the County Rooms, which compelled him to take Chrissy into the ball-room; and while Chrissy was still gazing in bewilderment and admiration at the evergreens and chalked floors, and talking, laughing couples, Mrs. Spottiswoode could scarcely believe her ears when she distinctly heard Bourhope ask Chrissy's hand for the first dance, saying that he would have engaged it before if he had got the opportunity.
Now Mrs. Spottiswoode had no doubt that Bourhope would solicit her sister Corrie for this dance, and therefore she had peremptorily forbidden Corrie to engage herself in any other quarter, even when Corrie had demurred at the certainty of the arrangement. It was very odd of Bourhope, unless he thought Chrissy would have no chance of any other partner, and wanted to spare a plain little girl's mortification at the very commencement of the evening. "That must be it," Mrs. Spottiswoode said to herself, and was consoled by Corrie's hand being immediately requested for the Colonel's nephew.
The Colonel's wife opened the ball with the most popular and oldest private for partner, and, of course, Chrissy and Bourhope stood below Corrie and the Colonel's nephew. But Bourhope and Chrissy did not mind Corrie's precedence, and were talking to each other quite intimately. Bourhope was forgetting the figure and bending across to Chrissy, though he was saying nothing particular, and speaking out quite loud. But he looked engrossed and excited. If it had been any other girl but Chrissy, Mrs. Spottiswoode would have called it a flirtation, and more than a flirtation. Chrissy looked well in her shabby dress, almost pretty indeed, in the new atmosphere. Mrs. Spottiswoode was aggrieved, disgusted in the first instance, but she would not just yet believe such an incredible contradiction to her well-laid scheme. Match-making involves so many parties, there are such wheels within wheels of calculation and resource. She glanced at Corrie, who was dancing very complacently with the Colonel's nephew, and exchanging passing words with yeomen who tried to get speech with her. In her white crape, and teeth as white, and her dimples, she was safe, heart-whole and prosperous—a beauty who might pick and choose a suitable husband, even though Bourhope, infatuated, threw himself away.
Mrs. Spottiswoode gave a sigh of relief. Failure now would only be comparative.
The dance being over, Bourhope sat down beside Chrissy. No, she turned her head the other way, and he rose up and strolled through the room. But he was soon back in his old place.
He wanted to dance with Chrissy again. She hesitated, grew nervous, and cast her eyes on Mrs. Spottiswoode. He went straight to their hostess, and said, "Mrs. Spottiswoode, you have no objection that I dance this dance again with Miss Chrissy Hunter?"
"None in the world, Bourhope," said Mrs. Spottiswoode, with a spasmodic smile, "why should I?"
"Why, indeed?" he returned, "or every dance? May I tell her so?"