Part 25 (2/2)
”She is teaching the Redmond children. I told you so at the concert.”
”I quite forgot,--utterly. How could one think of her as that, you know?”
”Now, please, do try and write plainly,” breaks in Georgie's voice, plaintively. ”Up to this I have not been able to read a single name upon my card.”
”I'll do my best,” says the fair young man. ”Is that legible?”
”Bellew, is it? Yes, I can read that. Thank you, so much. Do you know, I haven't the faintest idea who I am going to dance this with, because”--examining her card--”it looks like 'Barleycorn,' and it can't be that, you know?”
”There once was a John Barleycorn,” says Mr. Bellew, thoughtfully.
Clarissa has been claimed by Horace Brans...o...b.., and has disappeared.
Dorian, coming to the front, goes up to the little beauty in black and silver, and says, in a contrite tone,--
”I am so sorry I can't write; yet nevertheless _I_ am John Barleycorn, and this dance belongs to me.”
”Why, so it does,” says Georgie, recognizing him in a nave manner, and placing her hand upon his arm. She performs this last act slowly and with hesitation, as though not entirely sure of his ident.i.ty, which has the effect of piquing him, and therefore heightening his admiration for her.
”You have forgotten me,” he says, reproachfully.
”Oh, no,”--slowly. ”It was with you I danced the last waltz, I think.”
”No. The last polka.” He is even more piqued now. ”It has slipped your memory; yet there are some things one never forgets.”
”Yes,” says Miss Broughton, with a suppressed sigh; ”but those are unhappy things. Why think of them now? Let us dance again, and forget while we can.”
”You mistake me,” says Dorian, hastily. ”I thought of nothing unhappy.
I thought of you. I shall never forget this night.”
”Ah, neither shall I!” says Miss Broughton, very earnestly indeed. By an artificial observer, it might be thought somewhat sentimentally.
”Do you mean that?” says Dorian, hopefully, if curiously. ”Am I to understand you mean to keep this particular ball forever in mind?”
”You may, indeed.”
”But why?”--with much animation, and an over-increasing show of hope.
”Because it is my first,” says Miss Broughton, confidentially, with a little quick-drawn sigh of utter content, and a soft, if rather too general, smile.
”I see,”--disappointedly. ”Is that your reason? What a curious one!”
”You think it ridiculous, don't you?” says Georgie, faintly, ashamed of herself; ”but it is quite true, and I can't help it. I was eighteen last month, and never before was I at any ball. I shall never forget this room,--I know that,--or the lights, or the flowers, or the man over there beating time for the band, or--or anything.”
”I think 'the man over there' has much the best of it,” says Dorian.
”I wish I was the leader of that band. Is there any chance that your partners of this evening will be remembered by you?”
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