. "Faith, if he does, she does not greatly condescend to him. I
should be frozen by a beauty who, while I strove to melt her, did not
deign to turn her eyes. Ah, she has turned them now. What has he said?
It must have been fire and flame to move her. What's this--what's
this?"

He started forward, as all the company did--for her ladyship of
Dunstanwolde had risen to her full height with a strange movement and,
standing a moment swaying, had fallen at Sir John Oxon's feet, white in
a death-like swoon.

_CHAPTER XXVIII_

_Sir John Rides out of Town_

Tom Tantillion had not appeared at the ball, having otherwise
entertained himself for the evening, but at an hour when most
festivities were at an end and people were returning from them, rolling
through the streets in their coaches, the young man was sitting at a
corner table in Cribb's Coffee-House surrounded by glasses and jolly
companions and clouds of tobacco-smoke.

One of these companions had been to the ball and left it early, and had
fallen to talking of great personages he had seen there, and describing
the beauties who had shone the brightest, among them speaking of my
Lady Dunstanwolde and the swoon which had so amazed those who had seen
it.

"I was within ten feet of her," says he, "and watching her as a man
always does when he is near enough. Jack Oxon stood behind her, and was
speaking low over her shoulder, but she seeming to take little note of
him and looking straight before her. And of a sudden she stands
upright, her black eyes wide open as if some sound had startled her,
and the next minute falls like a woman dropping dead, and lies among
her white and silver like one carven out of stone. One who knows her
well--old Sir Chris Crowell--says she hath never fallen in a swoon
before since she was born. Gad! 'twas a strange sight--'twas so
sudden." He had just finished speaking, and was filling his glass
again, when a man strode into the room in such haste that all turned to
glance at him.

He was in riding-dress, and was flushed and excited, and smiling as if
to himself.

"Drawer!" he called, "bring me coffee and brandy, and, damme! be in
haste."

Young Tantillion nudged his nearest companion with his elbow.

"Jack Oxon," he said. "Where rides the fellow at this time of night?"

"Eh, Jack!" he said, aloud, "art on a journey already, after shining at
the Court ball?"

Sir John started, and seeing who spoke, answered with an ugly laugh.