“I am glad to hear it,” I returned.

“If Lady Jane will kindly play some lively air, written in the time of ‘The Sailor Lass,’ I will teach the Lady Mary the new dance,” said Brandon.

Jane threw one plump little knee over the other and struck up “The Sailor Lass.”  After she had adjusted the playing to Brandon’s suggestion, he stepped deliberately in front of Mary, and, taking her right hand in his left, encircled her waist with his right arm.  The girl was startled at first and drew away.  This nettled Brandon a little, and he showed it plainly.

“I thought you wished me to teach you the new dance?” he said.

“I do, but—­but I did not know it was danced that way,” she replied with a fluttering little laugh, looking up into his face with a half shy, half apologetic manner, and then dropping her lashes before his gaze.

[Illustration]

“Oh, well!” said Brandon, with a Frenchman’s shrug of the shoulders, and then moved off as if about to leave the floor.

“But is that really the way you—­they dance it?  With your—­their arm around my—­a lady’s waist?”

“I should not have dared venture upon such a familiarity otherwise,” answered Brandon, with a glimmer of a smile playing around his lips and hiding in his eyes.

Mary saw this shadowy smile, and said:  “Oh!  I fear your modesty will cause you hurt; I am beginning to believe you would dare do anything you wish.  I more than half suspect you are a very bold man, notwithstanding your smooth, modest manner.”

“You do me foul wrong, I assure you.  I am the soul of modesty, and grieve that you should think me bold,” said Brandon, with a broadening smile.

Mary interrupted him.  “Now, I do believe you are laughing at me—­at my prudery, I suppose you think it.”

Mary would rather have been called a fool than a prude, and I think she was right.  Prudery is no more a sign of virtue than a wig is of hair.  It is usually put on to hide a bald place.

The princess stood irresolute for a moment, in evident hesitation and annoyance.

“You are grieving because I think you bold!  And yet you stand there laughing at me to my face.  I think so more than ever now.  I know it.  Oh, you make me angry!  Don’t!  I do not like persons who anger me and then laugh at me.”  This turned Brandon’s smile into a laugh which he could not hold back.

Mary’s eyes shot fire, and she stamped her foot, exclaiming:  “Sir, this goes beyond all bounds; I will not tolerate your boldness another moment.”  I thought she was going to dismiss him, but she did not.  The time had come when he or she must be the master.

It was a battle royal between the forces on the floor, and I enjoyed it and felt that Brandon would come out all right.

He said good-humoredly:  “What, shall you have all the laugh in your sleeve at my expense?  Do you expect to bring me here to win a wager for you, made on the assumption of my stupidity and lack of social accomplishments, and then complain when it comes my turn to laugh?  I think I am the one who should be offended, but you see I am not.”