d rather have talked to you," she said.
"Peter Tappan is only an overgrown boy. If you had really cared to talk
to me--" She checked herself, flushing deeply.

O Lord! he thought, contemplating in the girl's lifted eyes the damage
he had not really expected to do. For it had, as usual, surprised him to
realise, too late, how dangerous it is to say too much, and look too
long, and how easy it is to awaken hearts asleep.

Dancing was to be general before the cotillion. Sylvia would have given
him as many dances as he asked for; he danced once with her as a great
treat, resolving never to experiment any more with anybody.... True, it
might have been amusing to see how far he could have interested the
little Seagrave girl--but he would renounce that; he'd keep away from
everybody.

But Dysart could no more avoid making eyes at anything in petticoats
than he could help the tenderness of his own smile or the caressing
cadence of his voice, or the subtle, indefinite something in him which
irritated men but left few women indifferent and some greatly perturbed
as he strolled along on his amusing journey through the world.

He was strolling on now, having managed to leave Sylvia planted; and
presently, without taking any particular trouble to find Geraldine,
discovered her eventually as the centre of a promising circle of men,
very young men and very old men--nothing medium and desirable as yet.

For a while, amused, Dysart watched her at her first party. Clearly she
was inexperienced; she let these men have their own way and their own
say; she was not handling them skilfully; yet there seemed to be a charm
about this young girl that detached man after man from the passing
throng and added them to her circle--which had now become a half circle,
completely cornering her.

Animated, shyly confident, brilliant-eyed, and flushed with the
excitement of attracting so much attention, she was beginning to lose
her head a little--just a little. Dysart noticed it in her nervous
laughter; in a slight exaggeration of gesture with fan and flowers; in
the quick movement of her restless little head, as though it were
incumbent upon her to give to every man confronting her his own
particular modicum of attention--which was not like a debutante, either;
and Dysart realised that she was getting on.

So he sauntered up, breaking through the circle, and reminded Geraldine
of a dance she had not promised him.

She knew she had not promised,