"Nor do I. All three, I suspect. Does it matter?"
"It matters to me." She made herself look at him. "You asked me to dance because I did not chase you. I should not like to discover that I have been chased after all, by a man who wanted to feel better."
He took that without flinching, which she had not expected.
"Then I will not ask you anything," he said. "Not until the minute-book is signed and the audit dinner is over and you have seen whether I mean it. You should not have to take my word. My family's word has not been worth much to yours." He put on his hat. "But I will be at Hartsmere at Michaelmas, Miss Lisle. I should very much like you to be there. Not for me. For him."
He bowed and went away down the path between the graves, and Honora knelt on the damp grass and moved the primroses a little, so that they did not cover her father's name.
IX.
The Countess of Merrow's ball, a fortnight later, was the last great crush of the Season, and Honora would not have gone to it for any consideration on earth if Lavinia had not come to Half Moon Street in person and very nearly begged.
"I am going to dance with Lieutenant Hale," Lavinia said, "twice, in front of Mamma and everyone, and then I am going to tell her that I will not be offered to the Marquess of Tilbury instead, which is her new idea. I should like one person in the room to be on my side. You owe me nothing. But you did teach me the subjunctive."
So Honora went, in the same sage-green silk, because she had no other, with the same beads in her hair. Lady Merrow's ballroom was white and gold instead of gold and rose, and the faces had grown sharper in two weeks. The story of the Duke who had thrown over the Prestwick heiress and sold his hunters had gone round every drawing room in Mayfair, and nobody yet knew whether it was a scandal or a joke. Honora felt the eyes on her as she came in, and knew they had her name at last.
The Duke was not there. He had gone north on Thursday, Mrs. Fairleigh had heard, to see to Lowfield.
Lavinia danced with Lieutenant Hale, a square, sunburnt, anxious young man who trod on her hem only once. She danced with him twice. Mrs. Prestwick went the colour of a boiled ham, and then, to everyone's surprise, sat down beside her husband and was talked to quietly for a long time; and at the end of it she did not take Lavinia home, which was a beginning. Honora stood by a pillar—one could always find a pillar—and watched, and was glad.
And then the music faltered, and the room shifted, and Honora looked up.
The Dowager Duchess of Hartsmere had come in through the great doors.
She wore the plum-coloured gown. She was alone. Nobody had expected her; she had not been seen in society since the night of Lady Wexcombe's ball. Lady Merrow went forward, flustered, to greet her, and the Duchess spoke to her briefly and then did not proceed to the chair being hastily found for her on the dais. Instead she turned and walked straight down the length of the ballroom floor.
The dancers parted for her without being asked. The musicians, uncertain, stopped altogether. In the sudden hush Honora could hear the candles, and the rustle of three hundred people turning their heads, and her own heart.