Hugo stopped playing. She did not openly request him to do so, but he knew she disliked to hear him, and to his fastidious taste the very presence of an unsympathetic spirit was jarring. Spontaneity ceased; pleasure was gone. He rose from the instrument, went to the sunny window, and hummed over the air he had been playing. ‘At what time do we go to-night, Mrs. Mallory?’ he presently inquired. ‘Go where?’ ‘To the ball.’ ‘At eight o’clock, I believe,’ she said, with stony coldness. Mrs. Mallory’s anger was coming to a climax now; it would be strange if Hugo did not say something which should cause the storm to break over his head. Unconsciously, unwittingly, he led straight up to the point. ‘I should like to dance every night,’ he said, rather enthusiastically, for his music still haunted him, and even Mrs. Mallory’s chill influence could not quite bring him down from his heights of abstraction to the commonplaces of every day--yet. ‘Very likely,’ she said. ‘I have noticed that the more frivolous a thing is, the more you delight in it.’ ‘Dancing is not necessarily frivolous,’ Hugo assured her with the greatest solemnity. ‘It is, or should be, an art; not a mere kicking about of the legs.’ ‘Indeed!’ ‘When I grow up,’ continued Hugo, ‘that is to say, when I am _majorat_, come of age, I mean, and come into my property, I shall devote a great part of my time to dancing, I love it so.’ This was too much, far too much. It was high time that this vain, bombastical, self-conceited pauper was put down. ‘When you come into your property,’ she remarked with polite sarcasm, ‘then you can squander it just as you please. But I would advise you first to make certain that you have any property to come into.’ ‘Oh, I don’t suppose I shall be rich. Sebastian knows all about it. He says he will explain all in good time.’ ‘Sebastian is as foolish a young man, in some respects, as I know; and as for you, Mr. von Birkenau, I am at a loss to understand how any one professing to be a gentleman can behave as you do.’ ‘As how?’ demanded Hugo, his brow suddenly clouding as he perceived that her words bore reference to something unknown to him. ‘Did Sebastian ever tell you, in so many words, that you had any property, any money, estate, possessions of any kind?’ ‘N--no.’ ‘I thought so. He is very trying, but I have always found him sincere, so far. I should have thought that very fact would have led you to think a little about your own position. That you can quietly accept another man’s bounty, and never ask the reason of it, never inquire into your own affairs, or ask whether you are living in a manner suitable to your future prospects--it is incredible! No one with any sense of honour could conduct himself in such a manner.’ ‘I do not know what you mean--Sebastian knows,’ said Hugo, a dread suspicion beginning to creep into his heart. ‘He is my guardian, and I live as _he_ pleases, of course. You know I do.’