The sight of him reminded Mr.Percy of the short dialogue he had heard.
"You are engaged for the next quadrille, are you not ?" he asked Lucia.
"Yes, to Maurice.

I promised it to him instead of the first." "You were to have danced this one with him, then ?" She laughed.

"It is a childish arrangement of ours," she said; "we agreed, long ago, always to dance the first quadrille together, and everybody knows of it, so no one asks me for that." "I wonder at his being willing to miss his privilege to-night; you must be very indulgent, not to punish him." "Oh! you know he is acting as a kind of steward to-night and has so many things to do.

It was not his fault." "And you would have waited patiently for him ?" "Patiently?
I don't know.

Certainly I should have waited, for no one but a stranger would have asked me to dance." "I hope, however, you forgive me." They had reached Mrs.Bellair's, and she only answered by a smile as she sat down.