It had been decided by Lady Bolderwood that Marianne should wear her white satin ball-dress with the Russian bodice, and pearls as her only ornaments. Miss Morville, visiting her room to enquire if she had all she needed for the completion of her toilet, privately considered that her ladyship was a good deal to be pitied for being unable to see how lovely her daughter appeared in this festal raiment; but as it was not in her nature to go into raptures she merely admired the dress, reassured Marianne on the vexed question of her curls, which Betty had arranged with charming simplicity, à l’anglaise,and placed a prettily spangled gauze scarf about her shoulders, showing her to a nicety how to dispose its folds to the best advantage. She herself, having already enjoyed several London Seasons, was not obliged to wear white, a colour which had never showed her off to advantage, but was dressed in a crape slip of her favourite soft pink, worn under a figured lace robe. Her pearl necklet was more modest than Marianne’s, but she wore a pair of diamond drops in her ears, and carried an antique fan, and a pair of very long French gloves of a delicate shade of pink which instantly awoke Marianne’s envy. “They are pretty,” acknowledged Miss Morville. “My brother Jack was so obliging as to send them to me, when he was stationed near Paris last year, and I have never yet worn them.”

“Do you know,” confided Marianne, rather shyly, “I had thought that you did not care very much for such things?”

“On the contrary,” replied Miss Morville, “my besetting sin is a great inclination towards finery. Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately — my figure is not good, and my complexion rather brown, so that it suits me best to dress simply, and never in such colours as make you, my dear Marianne, appear quite ravishing!”

Marianne blushed, and disclaimed, and marvelled silently that her friend could so calmly refer to her own lack of beauty.

Together, they traversed the several galleries and antechambers which lay between their apartments and the Long Drawing-room. Here they found many of the dinner-guests already assembled, those who were to spend the night at Stanyon having arrived some time previously, and being now gathered to await the appearance of those persons living in the immediate neighbourhood of Stanyon whom the Dowager had thought it proper to honour with an invitation to dinner. She herself, formidably attired in purple gros grain and velvet, and wearing the famous Frant diamonds, which comprised a tiara, necklet, and elaborate corsage, all of which would have been the better for cleaning, was assisting her daughter to bore the Duchess of Rutland with an account of the recent attack of measles suffered by Harry and Johnny. The Duchess was herself the mother of a young family, but only her strict training in the formal household of her Papa, the Earl of Carlisle, enabled her to support her part in this interchange with the appearance of complaisance. However, she was upborne by the reflection that her rank must. make it a certainty that St. Erth would take her in to dinner, and for him she had no hesitation in declaring that she had a strong tendre.

He was looking particularly handsome, in a dark coat made for him by the first tailor in town, and a most intricately tied cravat. His glowing locks, brushed into the Brutus style made fashionable by Mr. Brummell, shone like new-minted guineas in the light of the candles; and his stockings, like Miss Morville’s gloves, had been bought in Paris. So exactly were his coat and satin knee-breeches moulded to his figure that Martin was conscious of a sudden regret that he had not commissioned Weston to make his own evening-dress.

The entrance of the two young ladies was productive of a sensation in which Miss Morville realized, without rancour, that she had no part. Lord Ulverston was heard to mutter, “By Jupiter!” by the high-born damsel to whom he had been talking; and the Duchess, having rapidly assimilated Miss Bolderwood’s charms, demanded of her hostess in an urgent whisper to be told the name of the newest Beauty.

But although Marianne might be first in beauty, she was not first in consequence, and not all the Dowager’s concern for her son’s success with an heiress could blind her to the impropriety of his leading a mere baronet’s daughter in to dinner when other, and more important, ladies were present. To Mr. Warboys was the task of partnering Marianne allotted, and if his intellect was not of a powerful order at least he contrived to keep her very well-entertained throughout the meal. Lord Grampound sat upon her other side, and since his attention was pretty well divided between his other neighbour, a matron with an inexhaustible flow of smalltalk, and his dinner, which he pronounced to be uncommonly good, Marianne’s notice was not often claimed by him. At the head of the table, the Earl and her Grace of Rutland were seen to be entertaining one another creditably; rather lower down, Martin did his duty by a chatty Countess; and in the centre of the table, Miss Morville and Theo Frant conversed together with all the ease and comfort of old friends.

Hardly had the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner than the rest of the guests began to arrive, and in a very short space of time the musicians had struck up for the first country-dance. Here again, propriety forbade either the Earl or his brother to lead Miss Bolderwood to the head of the set that was forming. To the Duchess must belong the honour of opening the ball; and it was Lord Ulverston who had the good fortune to secure Marianne’s hand for the first two dances. Not all Martin’s manoeuvring served even to place him beside Marianne in the set, a circumstance which Miss Morville, who had that happiness, considered to be merciful dispensation of providence. The most dispassionate observer must have been obliged to own that between the lively Viscount and Marianne there already flourished an excellent understanding; and no one at all acquainted with Martin could have placed the least dependence on his comporting himself with composure under the trial of seeing her responding so artlessly to Lord Ulverston’s advances.

Her hand was presently claimed by Gervase for the first quadrille. She performed her part correctly, but since she had never danced it but under the guidance of her instructor, she was nervous of making some mistake in its various figures, and had little leisure for attending to the Earl’s attempts to amuse her. He, as was to be expected of an officer under the Duke of Wellington’s command, was an excellent dancer, performing all the most difficult steps with ease and grace. She exclaimed naively at the assurance with which he led her into the grande ronde; he told her that she wanted only practice to make her an unimpeachable exponent of the art: a compliment which emboldened her to attempt the pas d’été with more confidence than she might otherwise have felt.

But a severe set-back awaited the Earl. When the musicians, under his private instructions, struck up for a waltz, no persuasions could prevail upon Marianne to stand up to dance. Her Mama’s instructions had been explicit: she might, if solicited to do so, dance the quadrille, but on no account must she waltz. Neither the Earl nor Lord Ulverston could induce her to contravene this prohibition: to be seen to waltz before she had received the accolade of the approval of the hostesses of Almack’s must set upon any debutante the indelible stigma of being a fast girl. Lady Bolderwood had foreseen the danger, and had guarded against it: although some license might be permitted to a young lady making her appearance at a private ball, she was too shrewd not to know that there would be jealous matrons enough to report in influential circles that Miss Bolderwood was not quite the thing.

Marianne’s docility might disappoint her male admirers, but it did her no disservice in the eyes either of Lady St. Erth or of her ladyship’s acquaintance. She was held to be a very modest girl by at least three mothers of promising daughters; and the most delightful, unaffected girl possible by those ladies anxious to marry their younger sons creditably.

Since Miss Morville happened to be standing beside Marianne when the Earl begged for the honour of her hand in the waltz, good manners compelled him to turn next to her. She accepted the offer with her usual composure, curtseying slightly, and allowing him to lead her on to the floor. Here she surprised him by proving herself to be an experienced dancer, very light on her feet, and so well-acquainted with the various steps that she performed them as though by instinct, and was able to converse sensibly while she did so. Under no illusions as to the value of the compliment paid her by her host in asking her to stand up with him while many ladies of more consequence awaited that honour, she said seriously: “If only you had mentioned the matter to me, I could have told you that there was no possibility of Miss Bolderwood’s waltzing, my lord, and then, you know, you need not have commanded the musicians to strike up for one.”

“How do you know that I did so command them, ma’am?” he asked, smiling in spite of himself.

“Well, I did not, because Lady St. Erth does not like to see it danced; and I am very sure Martin did not, because he has never learnt the steps.”

“You are correct in your surmise,” he acknowledged. “And I am going to bespeak another waltz. You dance delightfully, Miss Morville!”

“I have had a great deal of practice,” she said. “I am very much obliged to you for the courtesy, but I believe you ought rather to invite Lady Firth to dance with you.”

“Miss Morville, you may manage the arrangements for the ball, but you shall not manage my conduct at it!” he told her. “I have already stood up with Lady Firth for the boulanger, and I consider myself now at liberty to please myself. I hope you don’t mean to refuse me the pleasure of another waltz with you!”