‘He’s coming this way, dear,’ Mrs Pereira put in with placid composure. ‘You’ll have to sit it out with him, now; there’s no help for it.’ ‘Sit it out with him!—sit it out with Tom Dupuy! O no, Mrs Pereira; I wouldn’t do it for a thousand guineas.’ ‘What will you do, then?’ Dr Whitaker asked tremulously, still holding the programme and pencil in his undecided hand. Dare he—dare he ask her to dance just once with him? ‘What shall I do?—Why, nothing simpler. Have an engagement already, of course, Dr Whitaker.’ She looked at him significantly. Tom Dupuy was just coming up. If Dr Whitaker meant to ask her, there was no time to be lost. His knees gave way beneath him, but he faltered out at last in some feeble fashion: ‘Then, Miss Dupuy, may I—may I—may I have the pleasure?’ To Mrs Pereira’s immense dismay, Nora immediately smiled and nodded. ‘I can’t dance it with you,’ she said with a hasty gesture—she shrank, naturally, from that open confession of faith before the whole assembled company—‘but if you’ll allow me, I’ll sit it out with you here in the garden. You may put your name down for it, if you like. Quickly, please—write it quickly; here’s Tom Dupuy just coming.’ The mulatto had hardly scratched his own name with shaky pencilled letters on the little card, when Tom Dupuy swaggered up in his awkward, loutish, confident manner, and with a contemptuous nod of condescending half-recognition to the overjoyed mulatto, asked, in his insular West Indian drawl, whether Nora could spare him a couple of dances. ‘Your canes seem to have delayed you too late, Tom Dupuy,’ Nora answered coldly. ‘Dr Whitaker has just asked me for my last vacancy. You should come earlier to a dance, you know, if you want to find a good partner.’ Tom Dupuy stared hard at her face in puzzled astonishment. ‘Your last vacancy!’ he cried incredulously. ‘Dr Whitaker! No more dances to spare, Nora! No, no, I say; this won’t do, you know! You’ve done this on purpose.—Let me have a squint at your programme, will you?’ ‘If you don’t choose to take my word for the facts,’ Nora answered haughtily, ‘you can see the names and numbers of my engagements for yourself on my programme.—Dr Whitaker, have the kindness to hand my cousin my programme, if you please.—Thank you.’