Part 72 (2/2)

”Ah, how do you do? Nice ball, isn't it?” Lady Beg observed, but without shaking hands.

”How do you do?” said Mrs. Carne, and then they resumed their conversation, taking no further notice of Beth, who would probably have turned and fled from the dreadful place incontinently, if Mrs.

Petterick had not come up at that moment and spoken to her as one human being to another, seizing upon Beth as Beth might have seized upon her, in despair; for Mrs. Petterick had also been having her share of snubs. Oh, those Christians! how they do love one another!

how tender they are to one another's feelings! how careful to make the best of one another! how gentle, good, and kind, and true! How singular it is that when the wicked unbeliever comes to live amongst them, and sees them as they are, he is not immediately moved by admiration to adopt their religion in order that he also may acquire the n.o.ble attributes so conspicuously displayed by them!

”You're not dancing, my dear,” Mrs. Petterick said. ”Come along and sit with me on that couch against the wall yonder. We shall see all that's going on from there.”

Beth was only too thankful to go. A waltz was being played, and Dan pa.s.sed them, dancing with Bertha Petterick. They glided over the floor together with the gentle voluptuous swing, dreamy eyes, and smiling lips of two perfect dancers, conscious of nothing but the sensuous delight of interwoven paces and clasping arms.

”My! but they do step well together, him and Bertha!” Mrs. Petterick exclaimed. ”He's a handsome man, your husband, and a gay one--flirting about with all the ladies! I wonder you're not jealous!”

”Jealous!” Beth answered, smiling. ”Not I, indeed! Jealousy is a want of faith in one's self.”

”Well, my dear, if you always looked as well as you do just now, you need not want confidence in yourself,” Mrs. Petterick observed. ”But what would you do if your husband gave you cause for jealousy?”

”Despise him,” Beth answered promptly.

Mrs. Petterick looked as if she could make nothing of this answer.

Then she became uneasy. The music had stopped, but Bertha had not returned to her. ”I must go and look after my daughter,” she said, rising from her comfortable seat with a sigh. ”Gels are a nuisance.

You've got to keep your eye on them all the time, or you never know what they're up to.”

Beth stayed where she was, and soon began to feel uncomfortable.

People stared coldly at her as they pa.s.sed, and she could not help fancying herself the subject of unpleasant remark because she was alone. She prayed hard that some one would come and speak to her. Dan had disappeared. After a time she recognised Sir George Galbraith among the groups of people at the opposite side of the room. He was receiving that attention from every one which is so generously conferred on a man or woman of consequence, whose acquaintance adds to people's own importance, and to whom it is therefore well to be seen speaking; but although his manner was courteously attentive he looked round as if anxious to make his escape, and finally, to Beth's intense relief, he recognised her, and, leaving the group about him unceremoniously, came across the room to speak to her.

”Would it be fair to ask you to sit out a dance with me?” he said. ”I do not dance.”

”I would rather sit out a dance with you than dance it with any one else I know here,” she answered navely; ”but, as it happens, I do not dance either.”

”Indeed! How is that? I should have thought you would like dancing.”

”So I should, I am sure, if I could,” she replied. ”But I can't dance at all. They would not let me learn dancing at one school where I was, and I was not long enough at the other to learn properly.”

”Now, that is a pity,” he said, considering Beth, his professional eye having been struck by her thinness and languor. ”But have some lessons. Dancing in moderation is capital exercise, and it exhilarates; and anything that exhilarates increases one's vitality.

Why don't you make your husband teach you? He seems to know all about it.”

”Yes,” Beth answered, smiling; ”but I shouldn't think teaching me is at all in his line. Why don't you dance yourself?”

”Oh, I am far too clumsy,” he said good-naturedly. ”My wife says if I could even learn to move about a room without getting in the way and upsetting things, it would be something.”

”Is she here to-night?” Beth asked.

”No, she was not feeling up to it,” he answered. ”She tired herself in the garden this afternoon, helping me to bud roses.”

<script>