Thinking she certainly was not Browny, whom he would have known among a million, he tried to quit the hall, and he twirled afresh, necessarily not alone; it is the unpardonable offence both to the Graces and the Great Mother for man to valse alone.

She twirled on his arm, uninvited; accepted, as in the course of nature; hugged, under dictate of the nature of the man steeled against her by the counting of gain, and going now at desperation's pace, by very means of those defensive locked steam-valves meant to preserve him from this madness,--for the words of the red-lipped mate, where there were no words, went through him like a music when the bow is over the viol, sweeping imagination, and they said her life was wasting.
Was not she a priceless manuscript cast to the flames?
Her lord had been at some trouble to win her.

Or his great fame and his shadowed fortunes had won her.

He took her for his own, and he would not call her his own.
He comported himself with absolute, with kindly deference to the lady whose more than vital spark he let the gossips puff at and blur.

He praised her courage, visibly admired her person, admitted her in private to be his equal, degraded her in public.