They pa.s.sed through the servants" offices, meeting only Lucilla"s maid, who was in a ferment of excitement with so many ladies to attend to, and had not a glance to spare for them; they heard voices and footsteps all around them as they entered the house; but they reached the ball-room unperceived and unmolested, and found themselves alone.
The great room, with its windows draped and garlanded, was dim and silent; the gardener"s steps stood in the middle ready for the lighting of the lamps; nothing but this remained to be done, and no one came in to disturb them.
For ten minutes they devoted themselves to business. Mr. Dalrymple mounted the steps, and wove the spiraea into whatever green cl.u.s.ters looked too thin or too dark; he touched up certain devices that seemed to him to lack stability; he straightened some flags that were hanging awry; and Rachel stood below and offered humble suggestions.
When they had done, and had picked up a few fallen leaves and petals, they stood and looked round them to judge of the general effect.
"It is very pretty," said Mr. Dalrymple; "and it makes a capital ball-room. I have not seen a better floor anywhere."
"It was laid down on purpose for dancing," said Rachel, who knew she ought now to be making her appearance elsewhere, yet lingered because he did.
"Are you fond of dancing?" he asked abruptly.
"Yes," she said; "very."
"Will you give me your first waltz to-night?"
He was leaning an elbow on the piano, near which he stood, and looking down on her with that gentle but imperious inquiry in his eyes, which made her feel as if she had taken a solemn affidavit to tell the truth.
"I--I cannot," she stammered, after a pause, during which she wondered distractedly how she could best explain her refusal so as to spare him unnecessary pain; "I am very sorry--I would, with pleasure, if I could."
"Thank you," he said, with a slight, grateful bow. "Well, I could hardly hope for the first, I suppose. But I may have the second? Here are the programmes," he added, fishing into a basketful of them that stood on the piano, and drawing two out; "let me put my name down for the second, and what more you can spare; may I?"
She took the card he gave her, opened it, looked at the little s.p.a.ces which symbolised so much more than their own blank emptiness, looked up at him, and then--alas! She was a timid, tender, weakly creature when she was hurt, and she had not yet got over the effect of Mr. Kingston"s harshness; and she had been crying too recently to be able to withstand the slightest provocation to cry.
She tried to speak, but her lip quivered, and a tear that had been slowly gathering fell with an audible pat upon the piano. He drew the card from her in a moment, and at the same time swept away any veil of decorous reticence that she might have wished to keep about her.
"What is the matter?" he asked, with gentle entreaty, which in him was not inconsistent with a most evident determination to find out. "_I_ am not distressing you, asking you to dance with me, am I?"
"Oh, no--it is nothing! Only please _don"t_ ask me," she almost sobbed, struggling against the shame that she was bringing on herself, and knowing quite well that she would struggle in vain.
He watched her in silence for half a minute--not as Mr. Kingston had watched her, though with even a fiercer attentiveness, and then he said, very quietly,
"Why?"
But he had already guessed.
"Because--because--I have promised not to."
"You have promised Mr. Kingston?"
Scarlet with pain and mortification, in an agony of embarra.s.sment, she sighed almost inaudibly,
"Yes."
"Not to dance with me? or merely not to dance waltzes?"
"Must I tell you?" she pleaded, looking up with appealing wet eyes into his hard and haughty face.
"Not unless you like, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think I understand perfectly."
"Oh, Mr. Dalrymple, I want to tell you about it, but I cannot. I am saying things already that I ought not to speak of."
"I don"t think so," he replied quickly, suddenly softening until his voice was almost a caress, and set all her sensitive nerves thrilling like an aeolian harp when a strong wind blows over it. "It is in your nature to be honest, and to tell the truth. You are not afraid to tell the truth to me?"
"I would not tell you an untruth," she murmured, looking down; "but the truth--sometimes one must, sometimes one ought--to hide it. And I hoped you would not need to know about this."
"Why, how could I help knowing it? Did you think it likely I might by chance forget you were in the ball-room to-night?"
What she thought clearly "blazed itself in the heart"s colours on her simple face." But she did not lift her eyes or speak.
"I am very glad I know," he continued, in a rather stern tone. "If you had done this to me, and never told me why----"
"I should have trusted to you to guess that it was not my fault, and to forgive me for it," the girl interposed, looking up at last with a flash in her soft eyes that, as well as her words, told him a great deal more than she had any idea of.
"It was really so?" he demanded eagerly. "It was not your own desire to disappoint me so terribly?"
"Oh, _no_."
"If you had been left to yourself you would have danced with me?"
"Yes, of course."
"Quite willingly?"
"You _know_ I would!"
Mr. Dalrymple drew a long breath. It was rather a critical moment. But he was no boy, at the mercy of the wind and waves of his own emotions, and Rachel"s evident weakness of self-control was an appeal to his strength that he was not the man to disregard. Still it was wonderful how actively during these last few minutes he had come to hate Mr.
Kingston, whom he had never seen.
"I suppose," he said presently, "I must not ask the reason for this preposterous proceeding?"
"Do not," she pleaded gently. "There is no reason, really. It is but Mr.
Kingston"s whim."
"And are you determined to sacrifice me to Mr. Kingston"s whim?"
She did not speak, and he repeated his query in a more imperious fashion.
"Are you really going to throw me over altogether, Miss Fetherstonhaugh?
I only want to know."
She looked up at him piteously, and he softened at once.
"Tell me what I am to do," he said, in a low voice. "_Do_ you wish me not to ask you for any dances? It is a horrible thing--it is enough to make me wish I had gone to Queensland on Monday, after all--but I will not bother you. Tell me, am I not to ask you at all?"
"If you please," she whispered with a quick sigh, full of despairing resignation. "I am very sorry, but it is right to do what Mr. Kingston wishes."
"That is not my view in this case. However, it is right for _me_ to do what _you_ wish. And I will, though it is very hard."