Robbed of my Westchester shepherdess, swallowing my disgust, I sauntered forward, finding Elsin Grey with Lady Coleville, seated together by the wall. What they had been whispering there together I knew not, but I pushed through the attendant circle of beaus and gallants who were waiting there their turns, and presented myself before them.
"I am danced to rags and ribbons, Carus," said Elsin Grey--"and no thanks to you for the pleasure, you who begged me for a dance or two; and I offered twenty, silly that I was to so invite affront!"
She was smiling when she spoke, but Lady Coleville's white teeth were in her fan's edge, and she looked at me with eyes made bright through disappointment.
"You are conducting like a silly boy," she said, "with those hoydens from Westchester, and every little baggage that dimples at your stare. Lord! Carus, I thought you grown to manhood!"
"Is there a harm in dancing at a ball, madam?" I asked, laughing.
"Fie! You are deceitful, too. Elsin, be chary of your favors. Dance with any man but him. He'll be wearing two watches to-morrow, and his hair piled up like a floating island!"
She smiled, but her eyes were not overgay. And presently she turned on Elsin with a grave shake of her head: "You disappoint me, both of you," she said. "Elsin, I never dreamed that you----"
Their fans flew up, their heads dipped, then Elsin rose and asked indulgence, taking my arm, one hand lying in Lady Coleville's hand.
"Do you and Sir Peter talk over it together," she said, with a lingering wistfulness in her voice. "I shall dance with Carus, whether he will or no, and then we'll walk and talk. You may tell Sir Peter, if you so desire."
"All?" asked Lady Coleville, retaining Elsin's hand.
"All, madam, for it concerns all."
Sir Henry Clinton came to wait on Lady Coleville, and so we left them, slowly moving out through the brilliant sea of silks and laces, her arm resting close in mine, her fair head bent in silent meditation.
Around us swelled the incessant tumult of the ball, music and the blended harmony of many voices, rustle and whisper of skirt and silk, and the swish! swish! of feet across the vast waxed floor.
"Shall we dance?" I asked pleasantly.
She looked up, then out across the ocean of glitter and restless color.
"Now I am in two minds," she said--"to dance until there's no breath left and but a wisp of rags to cover me, or to sip a syllabub with you and rest, or go gaze at the heavens the while you court me----"