“Ahem, Miss Hayes, my dear, the dancing will not begin for half an hour; don’t you think you had better come and sit with _us_ till then?”
But I had not forgotten my recent treatment at her hands, and said—
“Oh, thank you, Miss Benny, I am just going to see the pictures, as you recommended, and you know I _have_ sat with you for nearly an hour already in the fly, and you will have me again going back.”
Miss Benny sniffed, glared, and backed herself away in purple wrath.
“I see you are a match for Miss Benny,” said Mr. Somers, with a grin.
“Miss Hayes is a match for most people. She has been pitching into _me_ for not dancing,” said my escort with serene complacency.
“And quite right too, you _are_ a lazy beggar!”
But I noticed that Mr. Somers looked at me with a puzzled air. I dare say he scarcely recognized the meek, shabbily dressed girl of last July in the present Miss Hayes. I was puzzled also—I scarcely recognized myself. I was _tête montée_; my surroundings, my splendid gown, had transformed me; it was certainly another young woman, a total stranger, who was sauntering about in my body, and treading on air!
“When the dancing begins I shall fetch you, Miss Hayes. I hope you will give me the first waltz,” and he took out a small pencil, “and two others. May I have five and ten?”
“Yes; but I should warn you that I am not an experienced performer.”
“So much the better; you won’t want to steer,” writing rapidly on his shirt cuff.
To my great surprise I saw Mr. Aubrey Price also preparing _his_ shirt cuff for manuscript.
“And I—how many may I have, if you please?”
“Oh, really, I should not like to victimize you,” I protested.
“Nonsense! Shall we say the first square and the _pas de quatre_?”
“Very well, if it will not be too fatiguing for you,” I replied, and he also scribbled on his cuff; and then we walked on into the picture-gallery.
The gallery was full of people, and between looking at them and the pictures the moments flew. I had not half made the tour of the paintings when I found Mr. Somers already claiming me. We went up-stairs to the dancing-room—two immense drawing-rooms, decorated with flowers and palms. The deep windows held seats, and there were two or three sofas at one end of the ball-room, otherwise it was empty. A string band was stationed in the conservatory. Many couples were swimming round to the strains of the Hydropaten waltz, and in another second Mr. Somers and I had joined them.