‘You are not dancing, Mr. Preston!’

’No!  The partner I had engaged has made some mistake.  I am waiting to have an explanation with her.’

Mrs. Gibson was silent.  An uncomfortable tide of recollections appeared to come over her; she, like Mr. Preston, watched Cynthia; the dance was ended, and she was walking round the room in easy unconcern as to what might await her.  Presently her partner, Mr Harry Cholmley, brought her back to her seat.  She took that vacant next to Mr. Preston, leaving that by her mother for Molly’s occupation.  The latter returned a moment afterwards to her place.  Cynthia seemed entirely unconscious of Mr. Preston’s neighbourhood.  Mrs. Gibson leaned forwards, and said to her daughter,—­

’Your last partner was a gentleman, my dear.  You are improving in your selection.  I really was ashamed of you before, figuring away with that attorney’s clerk.  Molly, do you know whom you have been dancing with?  I have found out he is the Coreham bookseller.’

’That accounts for his being so well up in all the books I have been wanting to hear about,’ said Molly, eagerly, but with a spice of malice in her mind.  ‘He really was very pleasant, mamma,’ she added; ’and he looks quite a gentleman, and dances beautifully!’

’Very well.  But remember if you go on this way you will have to shake hands over the counter to-morrow morning with some of your partners of to-night,’ said Mrs. Gibson, coldly.

’But I really don’t know how to refuse when people are introduced to me and ask me, and I am longing to dance.  You know to-night it is a charity-ball, and papa said everybody danced with everybody,’ said Molly, in a pleading tone of voice; for she could not quite and entirely enjoy herself if she was out of harmony with any one.  What reply Mrs. Gibson would have made to this speech cannot now be ascertained, for, before she could make reply, Mr. Preston stepped a little forwards, and said, in a tone which he meant to be icily indifferent, but which trembled with anger,—­

’If Miss Gibson finds any difficulty in refusing a partner, she has only to apply to Miss Kirkpatrick for instructions.’

Cynthia lifted up her beautiful eyes, and, fixing them on Mr Preston’s face, said, very quietly, as if only stating a matter of fact,—­

’You forget, I think, Mr. Preston:  Miss Gibson implied that she wished to dance with the person who asked her—­that makes all the difference.  I can’t instruct her how to act in that difficulty.’

And to the rest of this little conversation, Cynthia appeared to lend no car; and she was almost directly claimed by her next partner.  Mr. Preston took the seat now left empty much to Molly’s annoyance.  At first she feared lest he should be going to ask her to dance; but, instead, he put out his hand for Cynthia’s nosegay, which she had left on rising, entrusted to Molly.  It had suffered considerably from the heat of the room, and was no longer full