She managed to come near him towards the end of the evening, sending Belle to get her an ice.
"Well," she said, with a comical _pitié d'elle-même_, "do you dislike me so much that you don't mean to dance with me at all? Not a single waltz all night?"
"What time have you had to give me?" said Fairlie, coldly. "You have been surrounded all the evening."
"Of course I have. I am not so disagreeable to other gentlemen as I am to you. But I could have made time for you if you had only asked for it. At your own ball last week you engaged me beforehand for six waltzes."
Fairlie relented towards her. Despite her flirting, he thought she did not care for Belle after all.
"Well," he said, smiling, "will you give me one after supper?"
"You told me you shouldn't dance, Colonel Fairlie," said Katherine Vane, smiling.
"One can't tell what one mayn't do under temptation," said Fairlie, smiling too. "A man may change his mind, you know."
"Oh yes," cried Geraldine; "a man may change his mind, and we are expected to be eminently grateful to him for his condescension; but if _we_ change our minds, how severely we are condemned for vacillation: 'So weak!' 'Just like women!' 'Never like the same thing two minutes, poor things!'"
"You don't like the same thing two minutes, Geraldine," laughed Fairlie; "so I dare say you speak feelingly."
"Are you? You know what the Italians say of 'ocche azzure'?"
"But I don't believe it, monsieur!" cried Geraldine:
"Blue eyes beat black fifty to seven, For black's of hell, but blue's of heaven!"
"I beg your pardon, mademoiselle," laughed Fairlie:
"Done, by the odds, it is not true! One devil's black, but scores are blue!"
He whirled her off into the circle in the midst of our laughter at their ready wit. Soon after he bid her good night, but he found time to whisper as he did so.
"You are more like _my_ little Geraldine to-night!"
The look he got made him determine to make her his little Geraldine before much more time had passed. At least he drove us back to Norwich in what seemed very contented silence, for he smoked tranquilly, and let the horses go their own pace--two certain indications that a man has pleasant thoughts to accompany him.
I do not think he listened to Belle's, and Gower's, and my conversation, not even when Belle took his weed out of his mouth and announced the important fact: "Hardinge! my ten guineas, if you please. I've had a letter!"