"But there isn't any other way," answered Nancy, a little shyly, but laughing, too, "unless we both go to Mrs. Porterbridge and ask her to introduce us. My name is Nancy—Anne Prescott."
"There now—it's perfectly simple, isn't it? I never could understand why there should be any formal to-do about telling two people each other's names. Do you know, the very minute you came in—perhaps it was from the way you looked at those dear old books—I felt as if—well, as if we ought to be friends. You are fond of them, aren't you—of books—really fond of them?"
"I love those old, shabby ones. They—they looked so very friendly."
He stole a keen glance at her face, and smiled gently at what it told him. Then, as she clung to his arm, he guided her dexterously through the crowd to the dancing floor.
After that first dance the whole evening changed for Nancy. She had half doubted that her companion would be a good dancer, but in two moments that doubt was routed. Gliding smoothly, weightlessly as if to the gentle rhythm of a wave, they circled through the moving swarm of dancers; Nancy's cheeks flushing like two poppies and her eyes glistening with the exhilaration of the music. Her timidity had left her; she felt warm, vivacious and attractive, and it seemed perfectly natural that after that first waltz she had partners for every dance.
Mr. Arnold danced with no one else. When other partners claimed her, he retired to the doorway, and stood with his arms folded, surveying the scene with his whimsical, absent-minded smile; but evidently he regarded it as his right to have each waltz with her.
"My aunt has ordered me to present you to her," he said, when he had at length led her into a corner for an ice, and a moment's chat. "For some reason she has evidently taken a great fancy to you at sight, and she is giving me no peace. She is a very peremptory and badly spoiled old lady, but it's impossible to resist her. I told her that she might frighten you to death, and that then you'd blame me."
"You didn't!" cried Nancy, horrified.
"Indeed I did. I've had the experience before—and I told her that I'd be hanged if I assumed the responsibility of surrendering any unsuspecting person into her clutches without giving them fair warning. But, seriously, she is a very dear lady,—though an eccentric one—and she has been saying extremely nice things about you. Besides—she asked me to tell you that she knew your father, and that she loved him long before you were born."
Something in his softened, gentle tone went to Nancy's heart. She put down her ice.