"And pray," he whispered, "could not you be off your engagement? Is it any very particular person? Who is it, if I may be so bold?" The dancers were collecting; Harriet, not knowing how to answer, and aware that he was not quite composed in his mind, glanced uneasily round the room. Mr. Gage coming forward in the most natural manner, said easily: "Now, Miss Conway, if you will do me the honour--" Harriet took his arm, and joined the dancers. "Oh!" said Sir Hawarth, satisfied that her plea of an engagement was genuine. Harriet's anger was magnificent. She felt that for once she had lost her self-command, when she excused herself on the plea of being _engaged_; she, who never hesitated to refuse a partner upon the most trivial reason, and frequently upon no reason at all; and whose right to do so was tolerably well established. She to commit herself! To put herself in the power of Mr. Gage--to be obliged to dance with him to cover a blunder of her own. It was insupportable. Mr. Gage moved through the figure as carelessly as possible. Harriet never danced a step, hardly vouchsafed her fingers' ends, when it was requisite to give her hand, and never directed to him a single glance from those stormy, dark eyes, that seemed to burn beneath her haughty brows. She never uttered a word even to those about her, but employed herself in opening and shutting her emblazoned fan with the jerk peculiar to Spanish women, which movement completely diverted the eyes of the Conde from his partner to herself. It brought his country more completely home to him than even the pure Castilian in which she had been so ably conversing. As soon as the quadrille was over, and before the dancers had time to disperse, Harriet turned from her partner without the slightest gesture of acknowledgment, and making a sign to Margaret, walked into the cloak-room, followed by seven or eight gentlemen, more or less in despair at her early departure. She suffered the Conde to put on her shawl, and hand her into the carriage, and parted from him with a smile, and a verse from Calderon. Mr. Humphries and Mr. Gage both attended Margaret, and then got into their own conveyance. There was a profound silence for a short time. Mr. Singleton felt that something was wrong, and was really so much under the dominion of his niece, that he hardly ventured to make a remark. At last he made bold to say that it was a very good ball. "Very," replied Margaret. Harriet said nothing. Mr. Singleton then complimented Margaret upon the number of hearts she had won, and said he expected to be besieged the next day by her different suitors. Margaret said that Mr. Singleton was very flattering, and thought no more of the effect she was said to have produced. "Well, Harriet," said Mr. Singleton after he had cleared his throat two or three times, "you were rather in a hurry to come away this evening." "Yes, Sir," returned Harriet, in a short decided tone. "How was that, eh?" asked her uncle.