Yet Mr. Ripple was so suave, Mrs. Courteen and my Lady Bunbutter so full of compliments, Lieutenant Blewforth so jolly and Mr. Lovely so witty, old Lord Vanity so generous of snuff, my Lord Cinderton so distinguished--and as for Miss Phyllida Courteen, she was enchanted to a magical domain where only very slowly did Mr. Francis Vernon blacken a trinket sun with the menace of real passion.
Suddenly her heart began to beat so fast that she feared all her friends would observe her agitation. Surely that young gentleman in primrose sattin and flesh-coloured brocaded waistcoat, who took the polished floor so easily, was the poet of Valentine Day to whom she had confided her note. Surely too, for all he stared at everybody else from time to time, his eyes were really fixed on hers. Perhaps he was a friend of Amor's with a message to deliver--and yet it would be more interesting, she decided, if he were not. Presently Mr. Lovely was bowing over her chair and asking in the politest manner possible for the honour of the next two dances.
She looked round at Miss Morton as if to say she could not leave her without a partner.
"Madam," said Mr. Lovely bowing very low indeed, "if I might be so presumptuous, does the young lady wish for a Vis a Vis, for in that case I shall certainly present my friend Mr. Chalkley of the Foot."
Miss Morton, amid a deal of simpering, confessed she favoured a minuet on occasions, so Mr. Lovely hurried off to fetch Mr. Chalkley before the musicians began to play the opening bars of the dance.
Phyllida was astonished at the coincidence and not sure whether, after all, Mr. Chalkley had not employed Mr. Lovely's offices on his behalf. However, as she had little enough envy in her and was romantically attached to Mr. Amor, she could scarcely refuse to help her dear Morton into the arms of an expectant lover, and if Mr. Lovely had no real inclination to dance with her, that was no great matter, since he was a vastly agreeable young gentleman and would pass the time very pleasantly in the absence of another.
Mr. Chalkley, when summoned by Charles, was extremely indignant and swore he was not come to dance with any jade in the room.
"Pshaw," replied his friend, "you can't stand there gaping all the evening."
"Why don't you make Blewforth dance with the hussy?"
"Odds my life, Tom, why won't you tread a minuet with a handsome young woman?"
"You're too devilish fond of arranging matters for other people to suit your own whims. I'll be hanged if I dance a step to-night!" But all the other young gentlemen vowed so earnestly that Mr. Chalkley was a surly fellow, that he gave way at last and suffered himself to be dragged to the feet of attractive Miss Sukey Morton, whose black eyes flashed very brightly at the sight of Mr. Chalkley's red coat.
Charles, having disposed her friend, offered his hand to Phyllida and soon they were stepping the minuet with infinite grace, admired by every one who saw them.
For her the room sank into unreality and she lived in a rainbow whose colours moved and changed to the slow dignity of far-heard Pizzicato.
The melody to which these marionettes were dancing possessed a strange quality. It was emotion in quintessence, without passion, without abandon. Whatever it had of definite character lay in the half bashful invitation to dance, as if some ghostly puppet master, pale and stately, were beckoning to his performers. As the opening bars of the minuet were repeated at the close only to die away in a poignant farewell, Phyllida felt for the first time, in the swoon of her last courtesy, that she was a doll whose gestures served to amuse a genteel but unearthly audience of monocled Gods.
Actually it was a mere momentary dizziness, a sudden loss of volition on which Charles hung a score of fancies.
"You are feeling faint?" he inquired.
"No, no."
"The heat is overpowering. Shall we sit for a while in an alcove, or shall we saunter in Curtain Garden?" They passed through the crowded room and down a cool passage into a Baroc cloister where stone Satyrs took the place of Angels, and the Cherubim were not easily to be distinguished from Loves.
The young moon was setting behind Curtain Hill larger and more golden than before.
The cloister was hung with amber lights and held innumerable whispers. Somewhere close at hand was a sound of running water.
"You are fond of dancing, madam?"
"Oh, sir, 'tis a very delicate motion truly."
"I fear you thought I was presumptuous in offering my hand for the minuet."
"No, indeed, sir," Phyllida answered quite naturally.
Lovely was rather surprized. He had expected the customary play of a fan.
"You are making a long stay here?" he asked.
"Oh, sir, I do not know, 'tis for so long as my mamma thinks proper."
"I have not had the honour of an introduction."
"No," said Phyllida doubtfully. She was not at all anxious to present Mr. Lovely, and willing enough to take advantage of the Assembly rule that the offer and acceptance of a dance was not necessarily a passport to intimacy on the next day. She did not wish to be treated like a child before the gallant Mr. Lovely who treated her with such deference.
"Did you hear anything more of the Valentine?" said Phyllida with a ripple of laughter.
"Not a word."
"You remember the young woman by whom I was seated?"
"Perfectly."
"'Twas for her," said Phyllida with more laughter.
"Nonsense."
"Oh, yes! indeed, 'tis true, and the best of it is she thinks the Valentine was sent by Mr. Chalkley."
"Never!"
"Oh! yes, yes, yes."
"But he has never set eyes on her."
"No! But she thinks he has--often, just because he picked up her fan once."
"Truly then I did a very politick action in effecting the introduction."
"Oh, sir, she was ravished, you may be sure."
"Gad! I'll send her a Valentine every day of the week, and put one in her Prayer Book on Sundays."
"Oh, sir! but sure, it might end in a wedding, and that's a very serious matter as all the world knows."
"Not more serious than love," said Charles.
"Well, no, perhaps not more than love; but then neither of 'em is in love with t'other."
"I swear they shall be."
"You can't force people to fall in love."
"Can't you?" said Charles very earnestly, so earnestly that Phyllida thought the air was turning chill and that they ought to go back to the ballroom.
"Not yet," pleaded Mr. Lovely. "I thought we might walk towards the Maze."
"The Maze?" said she quickly.
"Why, yes! the entrance is but a few yards from where we are."
"I had forgot," she answered, and then with a sudden determination, "I think we had better go back."
"You're not frightened of the Maze?"
"Oh, no, truly I'm not," Phyllida affirmed. "But I think I heard my mamma's voice and if she sees me here, I shall not be allowed to come to the next Assembly."
Phyllida was feeling a vague emotion of infidelity to her dear Amor and almost dreaded to see his tall shadow in the amber light.
"As you will," he said in some disappointment, "but we han't had a deal of conversation yet."
"That's true," she replied, "but this is only our second meeting. Oh! Gemini!" she went on, "you'll think me forward and bold, but I vow I never meant it in that way."
"Madam," said Charles with a bow, "I should never presume to put upon it an interpretation so complimentary to myself, but, seriously, you will give me two more dances to-night?"
"It would be indiscreet."
"Nay, I do not think so."
"Your friends would laugh."
"I do not _think_ so."
Mr. Lovely looked so fierce that Phyllida hurriedly promised two gavottes, and Charles who was something of a Gascon could not help congratulating himself on his speedy success.
They walked back to the ballroom almost in silence, and above the chatter of folk in the lobby, heard the opening of a plaintive minuet.
Lovely, when he had left his partner, walked over to his friends of the _Blue Boar_ and was greeted with a shower of sallies.
"How now, Charles, have you been smuggling rare spirits in the cloister?" cried Blewforth.
"Snuggling would be b-b-better!" stammered little Peter Wingfield.
Charles glared at both the young gentlemen, who laughed very heartily indeed, and were not at all put about by his frowns.
"Oddslife, Charles," said Mr. Chalkley, "where have been your eyes these past six weeks to have so lately discovered the fair Courteen?"
"Charles looks at women through dice-boxes," said Blewforth.
"And what's worse, sees double wherever he looks," added Mr. Chalkley.
"Charles," added Mr. Antony Clare, "be wise. Some knave of Clubs will trump your Queen."
"Mr. Clare," said Charles drawing himself up very straight and looking as grand as possible, "I'll trouble you to croak when I ask for your noise; as for you, gentlemen, you're too free with your words, be d--d to the lot of you."
Thereupon Mr. Charles Lovely swung himself out of the room with such an air that the young gentlemen looked after him in some apprehension.
"Egad!" commented Chalkley, "the man must be madly in love for he's lost his wit."
"And his humour too," said Blewforth.
"Don't rally him too hard, boys," said Tony.
"We can't all turn parsons because Charles is bewitched by two blue eyes," grumbled Chalkley.