Page 12 of Hard Home

Mary was prevailed upon to play.

She played the concerto exactly. Her time was excellent, her fingering was better than any woman's in the room, and every note was where the composer had left it. She had practiced it four hundred times. Nobody stopped talking.

For there is playing, and there is the other thing — the trick of the great houses, where a woman with music in her line plays badly and slowly and the room goes still and someone's eyes fill for no reason they can give — and Mary had no more of that in her than the pianoforte had. She knew it. She had known it at eleven. She played on to the end, at the correct tempo, and got the applause that is given to a thing correctly done, and shut the instrument, and was afterwards described by Miss Bingley asvery diligent.

Then the younger Lucases and two or three officers pushed the chairs back, and there was dancing at one end of the room.

---

Sir William came up glowing.

"What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! — There is nothing like dancing after all. — I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies."

"Certainly, sir; — and it has the advantage also of being in vogue among the less polished societies of the world. — Every savage can dance."

Sir William only smiled. "Your friend performs delightfully," he continued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; "and I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy."

"You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir."

"Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at St. James's?"

"Never, sir."

"Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?"

"It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it."

Sir William, undismayed, caught sight of Elizabeth as she was moving toward them, and was struck with the notion of doing a very gallant thing.

"My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? — Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. — You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you." And taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back.

She drew back rather sharply, and one or two people noticed, because Sir William had done a thing that no woman of an old family would have done: he had taken her hand in his own bare fingers and put it out toward another man's, in a room without a ward on the door.

It signified nothing. It was Lucas Lodge, and a country party, and everyone present would have sworn there was no harm in the world in it, and there was not.

But Elizabeth had felt, in the half second before she pulled away, the whole length of her arm go cold and then very warm; and Mr. Darcy had put his own hand behind his back with a speed that in a less controlled man would have looked like flinching.

"Indeed, sir," said she, "I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner."

Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honor of her hand; but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion.

"You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour."

"Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said Elizabeth, smiling.

"He is indeed — but considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?"

Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman.

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He was thinking of her with some complacency, when he was thus accosted by Miss Bingley.

"I can guess the subject of your reverie."

"I should imagine not."

"You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner — in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them!"