"Well, I suppose I sha"n"t quite forget you," says Georgie, seriously, after a moment"s careful reflection.
"I"ll take jolly good care you don"t," says Mr. Brans...o...b.., rather losing his head, because of her intense calmness, and speaking with more emphasis than as a rule belongs to him. "You are staying at the vicarage aren"t you?"
"Yes," says Georgie.
"And I live just three miles from that----." Here he pauses, as though afraid to make his insinuation too plain.
"At Sartoris, isn"t it?" asks Georgie, sweetly. "Yes? Clarissa showed me the entrance-gate to it last week. It looks pretty."
"Some day will you come up and see it?" asks he, with more earnestness than he acknowledges even to himself; "and," with a happy thought, "bring the children. It will be a nice walk for them."
"But you are always in London, are you not?" says Georgie.
"Oh, no, not always: I sha"n"t go there again, for ever so long. So promise, will you?"
"I"ll ask Mrs. Redmond. But I know we can. She never refuses me anything," says this most unorthodox governess.
"I"m sure I"m not surprised at that," says Brans...o...b... "Who could?"
"Aunt Elizabeth could," says Miss Broughton.
"I haven"t the misfortune to know your aunt Elizabeth, for which I am devoutly grateful, because if she "could," as you say, she must be too good for hanging. By the by, this is not _my_ first ball; yet you have never taken the trouble to ask me (though I asked you) why I intend keeping this night as a white spot in my memory."
"Well, I ask you now," says Georgie, penitently.
"Do you care to know?"
"I do, indeed."
"Then it is because to-night I met you for the first time."
He bends his head a little, and looks into her eyes,--the beautiful eyes that smile back so calmly into his, and are so cold to him, and yet so full of fire,--eyes that somehow have power to charm him as no others have yet been able to.
He is strangely anxious to know how his words will be received, and is proportionately aggrieved in that she takes them as a matter of course.
"After all, my reason is better than yours," she says, in her sweet, petulant voice. "Come, let us dance: we are only wasting time."
Brans...o...b.. is at first surprised, then puzzled, then fascinated.
Almost any other woman of his acquaintance would have accepted his remark as a challenge,--would have smiled, or doubted, or answered him with some speech that would have been a leading question. But with this girl all is different. She takes his words literally, and, while believing them, shows herself utterly careless of the belief.
Dorian, pa.s.sing his arm round her waist, leads her out into the room, and again they waltz, in silence,--he having nothing to say to her, she being so filled with joy at the bare motion that she cares no more for converse. At last,
"Like some tired bee that flags Mid roses over-blown,"
she grows languid in his arms, and stops before a door that leads into a conservatory. It has been exquisitely fitted up for the occasion, and is one glowing ma.s.s of green and white and crimson sweetness. It is cool and faintly lit. A little sad fountain, somewhere in the distance, is mourning sweetly, plaintively,--perhaps for some lost nymph.
"You will give me another dance?" says Brans...o...b.., taking her card.
"If I have one. Isn"t it funny?--I feared when coming I should not get a dance at all, because, of course, I knew n.o.body; yet I have had more partners than I want, and am enjoying myself so much."
"Your card is full," says Brans...o...b.., in a tone that suggests a national calamity. "Would you--would you throw over one of these fellows for me?"
"I would, in a minute," says Miss Broughton, navely; "but, if he found me out afterwards, would he be angry?"
"He sha"n"t find you out. I"ll take care of that. The crowd is intense. Of course"--slowly--"I won"t ask you to do it, unless you wish it. Do you?"
"There is one name on that card I can"t bear," says Miss Broughton, with her eyes fixed upon a flower she holds. Her dark lashes have fallen upon her cheeks, and lie there like twin shadows. He can see nothing but her mobile lips and delicately pencilled brows. He is watching her closely, and now wonders vaguely if she is a baby or a coquette.
"Show me the man you would discard," he says, running her pencil down her programme.
"There,--stop there. The name is Huntley, is it not? Yes. Well, he is old, and fat, and horrid; and I know he can"t dance. You may draw the pencil across his name,--if you are sure, _quite sure_, he won"t find me out."
"He shall not. But I would far rather you condemned that fair-haired fellow you were talking to just now," says Dorian, who is vaguely, faintly jealous of young Bellew.
"But he is so much nicer than Mr. Huntley," declares Georgie, earnestly: "and he was my first partner, and I promised him so faithfully to keep this dance for him."
"He"ll never see you in the crush," says Brans...o...b...
"But I told him exactly where to find me."
"It is the most difficult thing in the world to be anywhere at the precise moment stated."
"But I should _like_ to dance with him again," declares Miss Broughton, innocently, being driven into a corner.
"Oh, of course that ends the matter," says Dorian, in an impossible tone, drawing the pencil with much uncalled-for energy across Mr.
Huntley"s name.
Then some other man comes up, and claims the little wilful beauty for the waltz then playing, and, carrying her off in triumph, leaves Brans...o...b.. alone.
CHAPTER XVII.
"It is the hydra of calamities, The sevenfold death: the jealous are the d.a.m.n"d."--YOUNG.
Having watched her until the last fold of her gown has disappeared, Brans...o...b.. turns abruptly away, and, pa.s.sing through a gla.s.s door that leads into the gardens outside, paces slowly up and down the winding paths beneath the subdued light of countless Chinese lanterns, that, hanging amidst the foliage, contrast oddly with the cold white brilliancy of the stars overhead, that
"Rush forth in myriads, as to wage War with the lines of darkness."
Cold as the night air is, not a breath of wind comes to disturb the strange calm that hangs over land and sea. Far down in the bay the ocean lies at rest. From the distance a faint sound of music from the band comes softly, seductively to the ear, but beyond and above it comes the song of the nightingale that, resting in yonder thicket, pours forth its heart in tender hurried melody, as though fearful the night will be
"Too short for him to utter forth his love-chant, And disburthen his full soul of all its music."
The notes rise and fall, and tremble on the air. No other sound comes from the breast of nature to mar the richness of its tone. No earthly thing seems living but itself. For it the night appears created, and draws its "sable curtain stained with gold" over the sleeping world.
This nightingale, of all the feathered tribes, is wakeful, and chants its hymn of praise at midnight, whilst all its brethren rest in peaceful slumber.
The intense and solemn stillness of all around renders more enchanting the trills and tender trembles that shake its tiny throat. There is