‘My deluded child, one taste of my lamentable temper would send you flying into your Frederick’s arms,’ said the Marquis, and rose. ‘Where’s Mary Challoner?’
‘She wouldn’t come.’
‘Why not?’
‘To say truth, Vidal, I believe she did not desire to meet you.’
‘Fiend seize her!’ said his lordship unemotionally, and went off.
Miss Marling emerged from her alcove to find him gone. When he did not reappear she realised that he had left the ball, and had no difficulty in guessing his present whereabouts.
Nearly an hour later Mr Comyn came up the wide stairway. His arrival was most inopportune, for he came in excellent time to see Miss Marling bestow one of her pink roses on the ecstatic Vicomte de Valmé.
She was standing just outside the ballroom, and she did not immediately perceive Mr Comyn. The Vicomte took the rose reverently, and pressed it to his lips. He then bestowed it carefully inside his coat, and informed Miss Marling that it cause
d his heart to beat more strongly.
Miss Marling laughed at him, and at the same moment caught sight of Mr Comyn. She had never seen so stern an expression on his face, and she was secretly rather frightened. She made the grave mistake of trying to brazen it out, and greeted him with a careless nod. ‘I vow I had quite given you up, sir!’ she said.
‘Yes?’ said Mr Comyn, icily civil. ‘Pray you will spare me five minutes alone, ma’am?’
Juliana gave a little shrug, but she dismissed the Vicomte. She showed Mr Comyn a mutinous face, and said with a coldness that matched his: ‘Well, sir?’
‘It does not seem to me to be well at all, Juliana. You could not bring yourself to forgo one ball to please me.’
‘Pray do not be absurd, Frederick!’ she said sharply. ‘Why should I forgo it?’
‘Merely because I begged you to, ma’am. Had you loved me –’
She was jerking her handkerchief between her fingers. ‘You expect a deal too much of me.’
‘Is it too much, then, to expect that you would prefer an evening spent in my company to one here?’
‘Yes, it is!’ Juliana answered. ‘Why should I prefer to be scolded by you? For that is all you do, Frederick; you know it is!’
‘If my remonstrances seem to you to be in the nature of scolding –’
‘Why must you remonstrate with me? I vow if that is how you mean to treat me when we are married I would rather remain single.’
Mr Comyn grew paler. ‘Tell me in plain words, if you please, do you mean that?’
Juliana turned her face away. ‘Oh, well! I’m sure I don’t want to quarrel with you, only every time you see me you behave in this disagreeable fashion as though I had no right to be at parties but must be forever thinking of you. You think because you are used to life buried in the country I must be as dull as you are, but I have been bred very different, sir, I’ll have you know.’
‘It is unnecessary to tell me that, ma’am, believe me. You have been bred to think of nothing but your pleasure.’
‘Indeed!’ said Miss Marling, with rising colour. ‘Pray do not mince matters, sir! Inform me that I am selfish. I expect no less.’
‘If you think so, ma’am, you have no one but yourself to blame,’ said Mr Comyn, deliberately.
Juliana’s lip trembled. ‘Let me tell you that there are others who do not think so at all!’
‘I am aware,’ bowed Mr Comyn.
‘I suppose you are jealous, and that is the whole truth!’ cried Juliana.
‘And if I am, have I no cause?’
‘If you think I care for someone else I wonder that you don’t try to win me back,’ said Miss Marling, stealing a look at him under her lashes.