He stood talking beside her for a minute or two longer, uttering the mere polite commonplaces of ballroom conversation—the heat of the evening, the shortcomings of the band, the beauty of the flowers—when suddenly Nora gave a little jump and seized her programme with singular discomposure. Dr Whitaker looked up at once, and divined by instinct the cause of her hasty movement. Tom Dupuy, just fresh from the cane-cutting, was looking about for her down the long corridor at the opposite end of the inner garden. ‘Where’s my cousin? Have you seen my cousin?’ he was asking everybody; for the seat where Nora was sitting with Mrs Pereira stood under the shade of a big papaw tree, and so it was impossible for him to discern her face, though she could see his features quite distinctly.
‘I won’t dance with that horrid man, my cousin Tom!’ Nora said in her most decided voice. ‘I’m quite sure he’s coming here this minute on purpose to ask me.’
‘Is your programme full?’ Dr Whitaker inquired with a palpitating heart.
‘No; not quite,’ she answered, and handed it to him encouragingly. There was just one dance still left vacant—the next waltz. ‘I’m too tired to dance it out,’ Nora cried pettishly. ‘The horrid man! I hope he won’t see me.’
‘He’s coming this way, dear,’ Mrs Pereira put in with placid composure. ‘You’ll have to sit it out with him, now; there’s no help for it.’
‘Sit it out with him!—sit it out with Tom Dupuy! O no, Mrs Pereira; I wouldn’t do it for a thousand guineas.’
‘What will you do, then?’ Dr Whitaker asked tremulously, still holding the programme and pencil in his undecided hand. Dare he—dare he ask her to dance just once with him?
‘What shall I do?—Why, nothing simpler. Have an engagement already, of course, Dr Whitaker.’
She looked at him significantly. Tom Dupuy was just coming up. If Dr Whitaker meant to ask her, there was no time to be lost. His knees gave way beneath him, but he faltered out at last in some feeble fashion: ‘Then, Miss Dupuy, may I—may I—may I have the pleasure?’
To Mrs Pereira’s immense dismay, Nora immediately smiled and nodded. ‘I can’t dance it with you,’ she said with a hasty gesture—she shrank, naturally, from that open confession of faith before the whole assembled company—‘but if you’ll allow me, I’ll sit it out with you here in the garden. You may put your name down for it, if you like. Quickly, please—write it quickly; here’s Tom Dupuy just coming.’