These “ohs” were caused by Augustus having got so beside himself that he actually bent down and kissed my shoulder!

A sudden sense of helplessness came over me.  I felt crushed, as if I could not fight any more, as if all was ended.

“Good God!  How white you are, darling!  What is the matter?” I heard his voice saying, as if in a dream.  “Come, let me take you to have some champagne.”

I bounded up at that—­I should get out of this cage.  In the refreshment-room some of the other Yeomen were standing with their partners.  The dance was over and they came up, and Augustus introduced several of them, and, mercifully, I was soon engaged to dance for numbers ahead.  Neither their faces nor their conversation made the slightest impression on me.  These were the “jolly fellows,” I suppose, but I felt grateful to them for taking up my time, and I talked as gayly as I could, and one or two of them danced nicely.  Between each dance there was Augustus waiting for me.  But I soon found it was the custom to stay with one’s partner until the next dance began, and so after that I hid in every possible place for the intervals, and then took refuge with the Marquis.  Presently there was a set of lancers.  Augustus rushed up to me before I could hide.

“I don’t care who you are engaged to,” he said, savagely, “You must dance this with me.  I have been deuced patient these last four dances, but I won’t stand being chucked like this any longer.”

“I am not engaged to any one,” I said, stiffly.

He tucked my hand under his arm and dragged me to where a set was forming, but on the way Lady Tilchester beckoned us to the middle.  We took up our position at one of the sides of her set.  Augustus was so flattered at this notice that he forgot to grumble further at my long absence.

Except ourselves, the rest of the sixteen people appeared to be all of her party, and they looked so gay and seemed enjoying themselves; I am afraid grandmamma would have said they romped, rather.  Our vis-a-vis were such a pretty girl and a very tall man, and when first he advanced to meet us I felt I had seen him before, and by the second figure I knew it was my friend of the knife.  He is very good-looking without the mud.  Not the least expression of recognition came into his face, but he laughed gayly at the fun of the thing.  After the mad whirl of a chasse, instead of a ladies’ chain I have been accustomed to, we came to an end.  This dance was the first moment of the evening I had enjoyed.  All these people interested me; they seemed of another world, a world where grandmamma and I could live happily if we might.  They made quite a noise, and they danced badly, but there was nothing vulgar or bourgeois about them.  I felt like an animal who sees its own kind again, after captivity; I wanted to break away and join them.  Augustus, on the contrary, was extremely ill at ease.

After that, one dance succeeded another—­numbers of which I had to spend with my fiance, but, warned by my first experience, I always pretended a great thirst, or a desire to see the rooms, or an obligation to return to the Marquis, and so went to no more sitting-out places.  I did not again see the tall man—­he seemed to have disappeared until a dance after supper, when we met him with Lady Tilchester.