“Come,” he said gaily, “I never take a refusal. I know you dance divinely.”
“Don’t be so absurd! We should make ourselves perfectly ridiculous. People would roar with laughter and say: ‘Look at those two old fogies doddering round together.’ ”
“Nothing of the sort! They’d say: ‘Look at Theodore Spratte, he’s dancing with the belle of the evening. Isn’t that like him?’ ”
He put his arm round her waist, and notwithstanding a laughing remonstrance bore her into the middle of the room. It was true that he danced well, and for five minutes Mrs. Fitzherbert forgot that she was hard upon fifty. He talked the most charming nonsense. Her eyes began to flash as brightly as his, and she surrendered herself entirely to the pleasure of the waltz. It gave her a curious thrill to feel the strong hand that rested like a caress on her waist. Presently he led her into a little nook, all gay with roses, which had been arranged in an alcove on the stairs.
“You detestable creature!” she cried, sinking into a chair. “I was congratulating myself on being out of the turmoil of life, and you’ve made me regret it so that I could almost burst into tears.”
“But acknowledge that you enjoyed it. And you know just as well as I do that you were the most beautiful woman in the room.”
“How many virtuous matrons have you already assured of that fact to-night?” she asked, with a laugh.
“Ah, you think I’m joking, but I’m deadly serious,” he answered.
“Then there’s no possible excuse for you.”
“You can’t subdue me so easily as that. Does it mean nothing to you that the band is playing the most sentimental tunes and that all these roses have turned the place into a garden?”