Part 6 (1/2)

”No, I am not,” I said, smiling into his angry face; ”I am quite my own mistress as regards whom I dance with. I will come back when it is finished and you shall have the next one,” and I walked off with my friend of the knife.

Whether my _fiance_ stood there and swore or not I do not know; I did not look back. We did not speak a word until the dance was finished, my partner and I. Then he said:

”Thank you, little lady. We have, at all events, s.n.a.t.c.hed some few good moments out of this evening. Now, I suppose, we must return to your--bear.”

Augustus was standing by the buffet drinking champagne when we caught sight of him. We stepped for a moment out of his view behind some palms.

”Good-bye, Comtesse.”

”Good-bye,” I said, ”Will you tell me your name? I did not hear it--”

”My name! Oh, my name is Antony Thornhirst--why do you start?”

”I--did not start--good-bye--”

”No, you shall not go until you tell me why you started? And your name, too; I do not know it either!”

”Ambrosine de Calincourt Athelstan.”

He knitted his level eyebrows as if trying to recall something, and absently began to pull the knife out of his pocket. Augustus was coming towards us.

”Yes,” I said, ”but it is too late. Good-bye.”

The look of indifference, the rather mocking smile, the _sans souci_, which are the chief characteristics of his face, altered. I left him puzzled--moved.

Grandmamma was awake, propped up in bed, her hair still powdered and her lace night-cap on, when the Marquis and I got home. I leaned over the rail and told her all about the ball. The Marquis sat in the arm-chair by the fire.

”And where is your promised bouquet, my child?” she asked.

I faltered.

”Well, you see, grandmamma, I put it in a chair after the beginning, and Mrs. Gurrage sat on it, so I thought perhaps, as it was all mashed, I could leave it behind.”

Grandmamma laughed; she was pleased, I could see, that the evening had gone off without a fiasco!

”I met Sir Antony Thornhirst,” I said.

The blue mark appeared vividly and suddenly round grandmamma's mouth--she shut her eyes for a moment. I rushed to her.

”Oh, dear grandmamma,” I said, ”what can I do?”

She drank something out of a gla.s.s beside her, and then said, in rather a weak voice:

”You were saying you met your kinsman. And what was he like, Ambrosine?”

”Well, he was tall and very straight, and had small ears and--er--a fairish mustache that was brushed up a little away from his lips, and--and cat's eyes, and--brown, crimpy hair, getting a little gray.”