'No; you are the queen, if the one thing can make you so--the one thing wanting to me.'
'How absurd you are, Eva--when you say you are so afraid of him, too.'
'That is the very reason. I should get a better opinion of myself! Besides, there is nobody else so handsome. I declare I'll make a bold attempt.'
'Oh! you don't think of such a thing,' cried Laura, very much shocked.
'Never fear,' said Eveleen, 'faint heart, you know.' And with a nod, a flourish, of her bouquet, and an arch smile at her cousin's horror, she moved on, and presently they heard her exclaiming, gaily, 'Captain Morville, I really must scold you. You are setting a shocking example of laziness! Aunt Edmonstone, how can you encourage such proceedings! Indolence is the parent of vice, you know.'
Philip smiled just as much as the occasion required, and answered, 'I beg your pardon, I had forgotten my duty. I'll attend to my business better in future.' And turning to a small, shy damsel, who seldom met with a partner, he asked her to dance. Eveleen came back to Laura with a droll disappointed gesture. 'Insult to injury,' said she, disconsolately.
'Of course,' said Amy, 'he could not have thought you wanted to dance with him, or you would not have gone to stir him up.'
'Well, then, he was very obtuse.'
'Besides, you are engaged.'
'O yes, to Mr. Thorndale! But who would be content with the squire when the knight disdains her?'
Mr. Thorndale came to claim Eveleen at that moment. It was the second time she had danced with him, and it did not pass unobserved by Philip, nor the long walk up and down after the dance was over. At length his friend came up to him and said something warm in admiration of her. 'She is very Irish,' was Philip's answer, with a cold smile, and Mr. Thorndale stood uncomfortable under the disapprobation, attracted by Eveleen's beauty and grace, yet so unused to trust his own judgment apart from 'Morville's,' as to be in an instant doubtful whether he really admired or not.
'You have not been dancing with her?' he said, presently.
'No: she attracts too many to need the attention of a nobody like myself.'
That 'too many,' seeming to confound him with the vulgar herd, made Mr. Thorndale heartily ashamed of having been pleased with her.
Philip was easy about him for the present, satisfied that admiration had been checked, which, if it had been allowed to grow into an attachment, would have been very undesirable.