“I’m sorry to disappoint you, my dear fellow, but you might have had a little thought for other people’s rights. You won’t deny that I deserve an early favor?” said the baronet, with playful peremptoriness.
“Dear Sir Simon, I never thought of your asking me,” said Franceline penitently.
“Oh! that’s it,” said the baronet, shaking his head; “that’s sure to be the way of it; we poor old fogies get shoved out of the way by the youngsters. Well, you see I’m letting you off easier than you deserve. Roxham, we’ll change partners, if Miss Bulpit does not object to taking an old man instead of a young one.”
Franceline was again going to draw her arm away, but again the tightening grasp prevented her. She looked up at Clide; but he was looking away from her, his mouth set in a rigid expression, and an angry fold divided the straight brows that lay like bars across his forehead.
“Mlle. de la Bourbonais promised me this dance,” he said, coldly, to Lord Roxham.
“But I overrule the promise; she had no business to give it without consulting me, naughty, unfeeling little person! Come, De Winton, make way for my deputy!” And with a nod and a laugh that were clearly not to be trifled with, he beckoned Clide to follow him.
Franceline looked up with the beseeching glance of a frightened fawn as Clide released her arm, and with a low bow walked away. She was ready to cry; but there was nothing for it but to accept Lord Roxham’s proffered arm, and go into the ball-room where in a moment she was caught up and was whirling mechanically along with the waltzers. She was too preoccupied to be nervous about the performance that she had looked forward to with so much trepidation, and so she acquitted herself admirably. Her partner stopped after the first round to let her take breath.
“Yes, thank you, I am a little giddy; I am not accustomed to dancing.”
So they stood under the colonnade. Lord Roxham would have been a pleasant partner if Franceline had been in a mood to enjoy his lively talk on all sorts of subjects. He saw there were likely to be breakers ahead between Clide and some one about this dance; but he had had nothing to say to that. He felt rather aggrieved than otherwise, being forced, as it were, on a girl against her will, or at any rate without her being consulted. And it was hard on De Winton, whether he particularly held to his pretty partner or not. What the dickens did Harness mean by meddling in it at all? He was not given to putting spokes in other people’s wheels. Lord Roxham was very intelligent, but though furnished with an average share of masculine conceit, it never occurred to him to think that the falling through of his marriage lately, and the fact of his being the eldest son of a peer with a fine estate—a good deal encumbered, but what of that?—might afford any clue to Sir Simon’s odd behavior.
“No, I did not mean in the political issue of the contest; ladies are not expected to take much interest in that part of the business,” he was saying to his partner; “but they are apt to get up very warm partisanship for the candidates, irrespective of politics.”