That pale face, with its tint of old ivory, those thin,
finely-cut lips, indicative of diabolical craft, could she but read
aright, those unfathomable eyes, touched her fancy as it had never yet
been touched, awoke within her that latent vein of romance,
self-abnegation, supreme foolishness, which lurks in the nature of every
woman, be she chaste as ice and pure as snow.
The supper was long. It was past two o'clock, and the ballroom was
thinly occupied, when Mr. Smithson's party went there.
'You won't dance to-night, I suppose?' said Smithson, as Lesbia and he
went slowly down the room arm in arm. It was in a pause between two
waltzes. The wide window at the end was opened to the summer night, and
the room was delightfully cool. 'You must be horribly tired?'
'I am not in the least tired, and I mean to waltz, if anyone will ask
me,' replied Lesbia, decisively.
'I ought to have asked you to dance, and then it would have been the
other way,' said Smithson, with a touch of acrimony. 'Surely you have
dancing enough in town, and you might be obliging for once in a way,
and come and sit with me in the garden, and listen to the nightingales.
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