"No, I am not," I said, smiling into his angry face; "I am quite my own mistress as regards whom I dance with. I will come back when it is finished and you shall have the next one," and I walked off with my friend of the knife.

Whether my _fiance_ stood there and swore or not I do not know; I did not look back. We did not speak a word until the dance was finished, my partner and I. Then he said:

"Thank you, little lady. We have, at all events, s.n.a.t.c.hed some few good moments out of this evening. Now, I suppose, we must return to your--bear."

Augustus was standing by the buffet drinking champagne when we caught sight of him. We stepped for a moment out of his view behind some palms.

"Good-bye, Comtesse."

"Good-bye," I said, "Will you tell me your name? I did not hear it--"

"My name! Oh, my name is Antony Thornhirst--why do you start?"

"I--did not start--good-bye--"

"No, you shall not go until you tell me why you started? And your name, too; I do not know it either!"

"Ambrosine de Calincourt Athelstan."

He knitted his level eyebrows as if trying to recall something, and absently began to pull the knife out of his pocket. Augustus was coming towards us.

"Yes," I said, "but it is too late. Good-bye."

The look of indifference, the rather mocking smile, the _sans souci_, which are the chief characteristics of his face, altered. I left him puzzled--moved.

Grandmamma was awake, propped up in bed, her hair still powdered and her lace night-cap on, when the Marquis and I got home. I leaned over the rail and told her all about the ball. The Marquis sat in the arm-chair by the fire.

"And where is your promised bouquet, my child?" she asked.

I faltered.

"Well, you see, grandmamma, I put it in a chair after the beginning, and Mrs. Gurrage sat on it, so I thought perhaps, as it was all mashed, I could leave it behind."

Grandmamma laughed; she was pleased, I could see, that the evening had gone off without a fiasco!

"I met Sir Antony Thornhirst," I said.

The blue mark appeared vividly and suddenly round grandmamma's mouth--she shut her eyes for a moment. I rushed to her.

"Oh, dear grandmamma," I said, "what can I do?"

She drank something out of a gla.s.s beside her, and then said, in rather a weak voice:

"You were saying you met your kinsman. And what was he like, Ambrosine?"

"Well, he was tall and very straight, and had small ears and--er--a fairish mustache that was brushed up a little away from his lips, and--and cat's eyes, and--brown, crimpy hair, getting a little gray."

"Yes, yes; but I mean what sort of a man?"

"Oh! a gentleman."

"But of course."

"Well, he laughed at everything and called me an eighteenth-century comtesse."

"Did he know who you were?"

"No, not till the end, and then I do not think he realized that I was a connection of his."

"It does not matter," said grandmamma, low to herself, "as it is too late."

"Yes, I told him it was too late."

Grandmamma's voice sharpened.

"You told him! What do you mean?" and she leaned forward a little.

"I don't quite know what I did mean--those words just slipped out."

She lay back on her pillows--poor grandmamma--as if she was exhausted.

"Child," she said, very low, "yes--never forget we have given our word; whatever happens, any change is too late."

A look of anguish came over her face. Oh, how it hurt me to see her suffering!

"Dear grandmamma," said, "do not think I mind. I have done and will do all you wish, and--and--as the Marquis said--it will not matter in a year."

The Marquis, I believe, had been dozing, but at the sound of his name he looked up and spoke.

"_Chere amie_, you can indeed be proud of _la belle debutante_ to-night; she was by far the most beautiful at the ball--_sans exception_! Even the adorable Lady Tilchester had not her grand air.

_Les demoiselles anglaises! Ce sont des f.a.gotages inous pour la plus part_, with their movements of the wooden horse and their skins of the G.o.ddess! As for _le fiance, il etait a.s.sez retenu, il avait pourtant l'air maussade, mais il se consolait avec du champagne--il fera un tres brave mari_."

V

The next day Augustus went to London by the early train. I fortunately saw the dog-cart coming, and rushed to tell Hephzibah to say I was not up if he stopped, which of course he did on his way to the station. He left a message for me. He would be back at half-past four, would come in to tea. The Marquis and I were to dine there in the evening, so I am sure that would be time enough to have seen him. Grandmamma said it was no doubt the engagement-ring he had gone to London to buy, and that I _really must_ receive it with a good grace.

At about four o'clock, while I was reading aloud the oration of Bossuet on the funeral of Madame d'Orleans, the tuff-tuff-tuff of a motorcar was heard, and it drew up at our gate and out got Sir Antony Thornhirst and Lady Tilchester.

Although I could see them with the corner of my eye, and grandmamma could too, I should not have dared to have stopped my reading, and was actually in the middle of a sentence when Hephzibah announced them. I did not forget to make my _reverence_ this time, and grandmamma half rose from her chair. Lady Tilchester has the most lovely manners. In a few minutes we all felt perfectly happy together, and she had told us how Sir Antony was so anxious to make grandmamma's acquaintance, having discovered by chance that he was a connection of hers, that she--Lady Tilchester--had slipped away from her guests and brought him over in her new motor, and she trusted grandmamma would forgive her unannounced descent upon us. She also said how she wished she had heard before that we were in this neighborhood, that she might have months ago made our acquaintance, and could perhaps have been useful to us.

I shall always love her, her sweet voice and the beautiful diffidence of her manner to grandmamma, as though she were receiving a great honor by grandmamma's reception of her. So different to Mrs. Gurrage's patronizing vulgarity! I could see grandmamma was delighted with her.