d Bice, "dance! It was not to talk you came
here, and you can dance better than you talk," she added, with that
candour which distinguished her. And Montjoie flew away with her rushing
and whirling. He could dance. It was almost his only accomplishment.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE BALL CONTINUED.

Other eyes than those of her lovers followed Bice through this brilliant
scene. Sir Tom had been living a strange stagnant life since that day
before he left the Hall, when Lucy, innocently talking of Bice's English
parentage, had suddenly roused him to the question--Who was Bice, and
who her parents, English or otherwise? The suggestion was very sudden
and very simple, conveying in it no intended hint or innuendo. But it
came upon Sir Tom like a sudden thunderbolt, or rather like the firing
of some train that had been laid and prepared for explosion. The tenor
of his fears and suspicions has already been indicated. Nor has it ever
been concealed from the reader of this history that there were incidents
in Sir Tom's life upon which he did not look back with satisfaction, and
which it would have grieved him much to have revealed to his wife in her
simplicity and unsuspecting trust in him. One of these was a chapter of
existence so long past as to be almost forgotten, yet unforgettable,
which gave, when he thought of it, an instant meaning to the fact that a
half-Italian girl of English parentage on one side should have been
brought mysteriously, without warning or formal introduction, to his
house by the Contessa. From that time, as has been already said, the
disturbance in his mind was great. He could get no satisfaction one way
or another. But to-night his uneasiness had taken a new and unexpected
form. Should it so happen that Bice's identity with a certain poor baby,
born in Tuscany seventeen years before, might some day be proved, what
new cares, what new charge might it not place upon his shoulders? At
such a thought Sir Tom held his very breath.

The first result of such a possibility was, that he might find himself
to stand in a relationship to the girl for whom he had hitherto had a
careless liking and no more, which would change both his life and hers;
and already he watched her with uneasy eyes and with a desire to
interfere which bewildered him like a new light upon his own character.
He could scarcely understand how he had taken it all so lightly before
and interested himself so little in the fate of a young cre