“Won’t you let me talk to you now for a moment or two?  You are not going to dismiss me with that sort of come-back—­after all these years—­are you?”

He seemed so serious about it that the girl coloured up.

“I—­that is, Mr. Dysart was going to—­to—­” She turned and looked at Dysart, who remained planted where she had left him, exceedingly wroth at experiencing the sort of casual treatment he had so often meted out to others.  His expression was peevish.  Geraldine, confused, began hurriedly: 

“I thought Mr. Dysart meant to ask me to dance.”

“Meant to?” interrupted Mallett, laughing; “I mean to ask for this dance, and I do.”

Once more she turned and encountered Dysart’s darkening gaze, hesitated, then with a nervous, gay little gesture to him, partly promise, partly adieu, she took Mallett’s arm.

It was the first glimmer of coquetry she had ever deliberately displayed; and at the same instant she became aware that something new had been suddenly awakened in her—­something which stole like a glow through her veins, exciting her with its novelty.

“Do you know,” she said, “that you have taken me forcibly away from an exceedingly nice man?”

“I don’t care.”

“Oh—­but might I not at least have been consulted?”

“Didn’t you want to come?” he asked, stopping short.  There was something overbearing in his voice and his straight, unwavering gaze.

She didn’t know how to take it, how to meet it.  Voice and manner required some proper response which seemed to be beyond her experience.

She did not answer; but a slight pressure of her bare arm set him in motion again.

The phenomenon interested her; to see what control over this abrupt young man she really had she ventured a very slight retrograde arm-pressure, then a delicate touch to right, to left, and forward once more.  It was most interesting; he backed up, guided right and left, and started forward or halted under perfect control.  What had she been afraid of in him?  She ventured to glance around, and, encountering a warmly personal interest in his gaze, instantly assumed that cold, blank, virginal mask which the majority of young girls discard at her age.

However, her long-checked growth in the arts of womanhood had already recommenced.  She had been growing fast, feverishly, and was just now passing that period where the desire for masculine admiration innocently rules all else, but where the discovery of it chills and constrains.

She passed it at that moment.  The next time their glances met she smiled a little.  A new epoch in her life had begun.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.  “Are we not going to dance?”

“I thought we might sit out a dance or two in the conservatory—­one or two——­”

“One,” she said decidedly.  “Here are some palms.  Why not sit here?”

There were a number of people about; she saw them, too, noted his hesitation, understood it.