"Pretty? She never seemed to me pretty."
"Oh, you are too young to recognize beauty when you see it. She was the loveliest child I ever knew, with her pale complexion, her brilliant eyes and aristocratic profile. Georgy Lenox is a gaudy transparency beside her. But I forgot: I must come out and see you at your rooms. Only don't bore me: it is the fashion at universities to talk of subjects never discussed anywhere else by civilized beings, and I can't abide such rubbish. I hear you're quite the pride of your class, Floyd?"
"Oh, what wretched nonsense!"
"Your modesty pleases me.—Come on, boys: Mrs. Dwight is looking at us."
And we were introduced to our hostess at last, who received us in a manner expressive of our social insignificance. "Dear me!" said she placidly, "have you just come in? You're very late. I supposed everybody was here long ago. Georgy asked my permission to invite some students: I never do that sort of thing myself. There is really no end to it, you know. Besides, I suppose your time is quite taken up with your studies and your boating and your flirtations. Do you dance?—There's Georgy Lenox beckoning to you, Mr. Dart." Harry darted off, and was lost in the crowd before I had a chance to follow him with my eyes, for Mrs. Dwight, feeling the need of support or wishing to be guided into another room, had put her arm within mine, thus compelling my attention. Her conversation still continued in a steady stream. It had occurred to her that I was in some way connected with Mr. Floyd, whose reputation was national, and she went on reviving reminiscences of him while we strolled about. She addressed me with such unhesitating talkativeness that I succumbed at once, and became an easy prey. What she said was quite uninteresting, besides being rambling in a degree which hindered my getting the smallest idea of her meaning; but her own enjoyment of her loquaciousness never once faltered, and she discoursed as fluently as an eighteenth-century poet, and without any more idea of the grace of finishing within a reasonable time. How I envied Thorpe's easy method of withdrawing from her attack! how I longed for some flank movement to draw off her attention! I was weaving futile plans of escape, when suddenly a radiant creature in blue and white gauze, the swirl of whose long skirts I had watched as I listened to Mrs. Dwight, paused in the waltz close beside me, turned, looked me in the face and patted my arm with her fan. "Floyd!" she cried, "Floyd Randolph! don't you know me?"
Mrs. Dwight vanished, I do not remember how or where. Everybody vanished: I seemed to be alone in the world staring into Georgy Lenox's face.
"Cousin Maria had fastened upon you like the Ancient Mariner," prattled Georgy, laughing. "That is her way. If she fancies a young man, she bears down upon him, and with one fell swoop carries him off. How melancholy you looked! But you are as grave as ever now. Aren't you glad to see me?"
"Oh yes, I am glad," I told her, but felt a weight upon my tongue, and could not find expression for any thoughts which moved me. For, let it be understood, I was powerfully impressed by her, and in a moment had changed from what I was before I met her. She talked on rapidly, looking at me kindly, and doubtless by this time sufficiently understood her power over our sex to realize that under certain conditions words mean little on a man's tongue, while silence confesses much. But, counting time by minutes, I was with her but a very little while before half a dozen partners came toward her claiming her for a new waltz.
"Ask me to dance, Floyd," she whispered.
"I do not dance, Georgy," I returned gravely, and drew back; and presently she was whirling about again, her flower-crowned head gyrating against first one black-coated shoulder and then another.