Augustus dances vilely.  When he was not bumping me against other valseurs he was treading on my toes—­a jig or a funeral-march might have been playing instead of a valse, for all the time of it mattered to him.

“I never dance fast, I hate it,” he said, in the first pause; “don’t you?”

“No!  I like it—­at least, I mean, I like to do whatever the music is doing,” I answered, trying to keep my voice from showing the anger and disgust I felt.

“Darling!” was all he muttered, as he seized me round the waist again.

“Oh! it makes me giddy,” I said, which was a lie I am ashamed of.  “Let us stop.”

It was from Scylla to Charybdis, for I was led to one of the sitting-out places.  So stupidly ignorant was I in the ways of balls that I did not realize that we should be practically alone, or I would have remained glued to the ballroom.  However, before I knew it we were seated on a sofa behind a screen, in a subdued light.

“Are you never going to give me a kiss, Ambrosine?” Augustus said, pleadingly.

“Certainly not here,” I exclaimed.  “How can you be so horrid?”

“You are a little vixen.”

“You may call me what you like; I do not care.  But you shall not me a public disgrace,” I retorted.

“I think you are deucedly unkind to me,” he said, his sulky underlip pouting.

I controlled myself, I tried to remember grandmamma’s last advice to me, to be as agreeable as possible and not come to a quarrel.  She said I must even submit to a certain amount of familiarity from my betrothed.  These were her words:  “It is in the nature of men, my child, to wish to demonstrate by outward marks of affection their possession and appreciation of their fiancees, and, unfortunately, the English customs permit such an amount of license in this direction that I fear you must submit to a little, at least, with a good grace.”

I softened my voice.  “I do not mean to be unkind,” I said, “but it is all so very sudden.  You must give me time to accustom myself to the idea of having a fiance-you see, I have never had one before,” and I tried to laugh.

He was slightly mollified.

“Well, at least let me hold your hand,” he said.

I gave him a stiff, unsympathetic set of fingers, which he proceeded to kiss through the glove.  My attention was so taken up with trying to see if any one was coming, to avoid the disgrace of being caught thus, that I had not even time to feel the nastiness of it.

Augustus was murmuring sentences of love all the time.  It must have sounded like this: 

“Darling, what a dear little paw!”

“Oh! is not that a lady looking this way?”

“I should like to kiss your arm—­”

“I am sure they can see in here by that looking-glass.”

“Why won’t you let me kiss just that jolly little curl on your neck?”

“I am certain some one is coming—­oh!—­oh!”