There was a good deal more discussion, and it was ultimately settled that Vixen should go to the ball. She had no positive objection. She would have liked the idea of the ball well enough perhaps, if it had not been for Captain Winstanley. It was his advocacy that made the subject odious.
"How very rudely you behaved to Captain Winstanley, Violet," said Mrs. Tempest, when her visitor had departed.
"Did I, mamma?" inquired Vixen listlessly. "I thought I was extraordinarily civil. If you knew how I should have liked to behave to him, you would think so too."
"I can not imagine why you are so prejudiced against him," pursued Mrs. Tempest fretfully.
"It is not prejudice, mamma, but instinct, like Argus's. That man is destined to do us some great wrong, if we do not escape out of his clutches."
"It is shameful of you to say such things," cried the widow, pale with anger. "What have you to say against him? What fault can you find with him? You cannot deny that he is most gentlemanlike."
"No, mamma; he is a little too gentlemanlike. He makes a trade of his gentlemanliness. He is too highly polished for me."
"You prefer a rough young fellow, like Roderick Vawdrey, who talks slang, and smells of the stables."
"I prefer anyone who is good and true," retorted Vixen. "Roderick is a man, and not to be named in the same breath with your fine gentleman."
"I admit that the comparison would be vastly to his disadvantage," said the widow. "But it's time to dress for dinner."
"And we are to dine with the Mortimers," yawned Vixen. "What a bore!"
This young lady had not that natural bent for society which is symptomatic of her age. The wound that pierced her young heart two years ago had not healed so completely that she could find pleasure in inane conversation across a primeval forest of sixpenny ferns, and the factitious liveliness of a fashionable dinner-table.
The night of the ball came, and, in spite of her aversion for Captain Winstanley, and general dislike of the whole thing, Violet Tempest began the evening by enjoying herself. She was young and energetic, and had an immense reserve of animal spirits after her two years of sadness and mourning. She danced with the partners her friends brought her--some of the most eligible men in the room--and was full of life and gaiety; yet the festival seemed to her in somewise horrible all the time.