She hid her face against him and strove for self-control.
He kissed her temple and the clustering hair above it. "There now! You
are not going to be a silly little scared fawn any more. Come along and
dance it off!"
His arm encircled her shoulders; he began to lead her to the stairs.
And Dinah went, slave-like in her submission, but hating herself the more
for every step she took.
They went to the ballroom, and presently they danced. But the old subtle
charm was absent. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the music, her body
swayed and pulsed to the behest of his; but her spirit stood apart,
bruised and downcast and very much alone. Her gilded palace had fallen
all about her in ruins. The deliverance to which she had looked forward
so eagerly was but another bondage that would prove more cruel and more
enslaving than the first. She longed with all her quivering heart to run
away and hide.
He was very kind to her, more considerate than she had ever known him.
Perhaps he missed the fairy abandonment which had so delighted him in her
dancing of old; but he found no fault; and when the dance was over he did
not lead her away to some private corner as she had dreaded, but took her
instead to her father and stood with him for some time in talk.
She saw Scott in the distance, but he did not approach her while Eustace
was with them, and when her _fiance_ turned away at length he had
disappeared.
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