If you had really cared to talk to me--" She checked herself, flushing deeply.
O Lord! he thought, contemplating in the girl's lifted eyes the damage he had not really expected to do.

For it had, as usual, surprised him to realise, too late, how dangerous it is to say too much, and look too long, and how easy it is to awaken hearts asleep.
Dancing was to be general before the cotillion.

Sylvia would have given him as many dances as he asked for; he danced once with her as a great treat, resolving never to experiment any more with anybody....

True, it might have been amusing to see how far he could have interested the little Seagrave girl--but he would renounce that; he'd keep away from everybody.
But Dysart could no more avoid making eyes at anything in petticoats than he could help the tenderness of his own smile or the caressing cadence of his voice, or the subtle, indefinite something in him which irritated men but left few women indifferent and some greatly perturbed as he strolled along on his amusing journey through the world.
He was strolling on now, having managed to leave Sylvia planted; and presently, without taking any particular trouble to find Geraldine, discovered her eventually as the centre of a promising circle of men, very young men and very old men--nothing medium and desirable as yet.
For a while, amused, Dysart watched her at her first party.

Clearly she was inexperienced; she let these men have their own way and their own say; she was not handling them skilfully; yet there seemed to be a charm about this young girl that detached man after man from the passing throng and added them to her circle--which had now become a half circle, completely cornering her.
Animated, shyly confident, brilliant-eyed, and flushed with the excitement of attracting so much attention, she was beginning to lose her head a little--just a little.