Diana Tempest Volume Ii Part 14

"Well," rejoined Lord Frederick, who as a French marquis, with cane and snuff-box, was one of the best-dressed figures in the room, "you don't miss much. Onlookers see most of the game. Look at that fairy twirling with the little man in the kilt. Their skirts are just the same length.

The worst part of this species of entertainment is that one cuts one's dearest friends. Some one asked me just now whether the 'Mauvaise Langue' was here to-night. Did not recognize the wolf in sheep's clothing. More arrivals. A Turk and a Norwegian peasant, and a man in a smock frock. And--now--what on earth is the creature in blue and red, with a female to match?"

"Otter-hounds," suggested John.

"Is it possible? Never saw it before. There goes Freemantle as a private in the Blues, saluting as he is introduced, instead of bowing. What a fund of humour the youth of the present day possess! Who is that bleached earwig he is dancing with?"

"I think it is Miss Crupps, the heiress."

"H'm! Might have known it. That is the sort of little pill that no one takes unless it is very much gilt. Here comes the Verelst party at last.

Lady Verelst has put herself together well. I would not mind buying her at my valuation and selling her at her own. She hates me, that little painted saint. I always cultivate a genuine saint. I make a point of it. They may look deuced dowdy down here--they generally do, though I believe it is only their wings under their clothes; but they will probably form the aristocracy up yonder, and it is as well to know them beforehand. But Lady Verelst is a sham, and I hate shams. I am a sham myself. He! he! When last I met her she talked pious, and implied intimacy with the Almighty, till at last I told her that it was the vulgarest thing in life to be always dragging in your swell acquaintance. He! he! I shall go and speak to her directly she has done introducing her party. Mrs. Dundas--and--I don't know the other woman.

Who is the girl in white?"

"Miss Everard."

"What! Hemsworth's sister? Then he will be here too, probably. I like Hemsworth. There's no more harm in that young man than there is in a tablet of Pears' soap. A crowned head next. Why, it's Di Tempest. By ---- she is handsomer every time I see her! If that girl knew how to advertise herself, she might become a professional beauty."

"Heaven forbid!" said John, involuntarily, watching Di with the intense concentration of one who has long pored over memory's dim portrait, and now corrects it by the original.

Lord Frederick did not see the look. For once something escaped him. He too was watching Di, who with the remainder of the Verelst party was being drifted towards them by a strong current of fresh arrivals in their wake.

The usual general recognition and non-recognition peculiar to fancy b.a.l.l.s ensued, in which old acquaintances looked blankly at each other, gasped each other's names, and then shook hands effusively; amid which one small greeting between two people who had seen and recognized each other from the first instant took place, and was over in a moment.

"I cannot recognize any one," said Di, her head held a shade higher than usual, looking round the room, and saying to herself, "He would not have spoken to me if he could have helped it."

"Some of the people are unrecognizable," said John, with originality equal to hers, and stung by the conviction that she had tried to avoid shaking hands with him.

The music struck up suddenly as if it were a new idea.

"Are you engaged for this dance?" said Mr. Lumley, flying to her side.

"Yes," said Di with decision.

"So am I," said he, and was gone again.

"Dance?" said a _Sporting Times_, rushing up in turn, and shooting out the one word like a pea from a pop-gun.

"Thanks, I should like to, but I am not allowed," said Di. "My grandmother is very particular. If you had been the _Sunday at Home_ I should have been charmed."

The "Pink 'un" expostulated vehemently, and said he would have come as the _Church Times_ if he had only known; but Di remained firm.

John walked away, p.r.i.c.king himself with his little dagger, the sheath of which had somehow got lost, and watched the knot of men who gradually gathered round Di. Presently she moved away with Lord Frederick in the direction of Madeleine, who had installed herself at the further end of the room among the _fenders_, as our latter-day youth gracefully designates the tiaras of the chaperones.

John was seized upon and introduced to an elderly minister with an order, who told him he had known his father, and began to sound him as to his political views. John, who was inured to this form of address, answered somewhat vaguely, for at that moment Di began to dance. She had a partner worthy of her in the shape of a sedate young Russian, resplendent in the white-and-gold uniform of the imperial _Gardes a cheval_.

Lord Frederick gravitated back to John. No young man among the former's large acquaintance was given the benefit of his experience more liberally than John. Lord Frederick took an interest in him which was neither returned nor repelled.

"Elver is down at last," he said. "It seems he had to wait till his mother's maid could be spared to sew him into his clothes. It is a pity you are not dancing, John. You might dance with your cousin. She and Prince Blazinski made a splendid couple. What a crowd of moths round that candle! I hope you are not one of them. It is not the candle that gets singed. Another set of arrivals. Look at Carruthers coming in with a bouquet. c.o.x of the _Monarch_ still, I suppose. He can't dance with it; no, he has given it to his father to hold. Supper at last. I must go and take some one in."

John took Miss Everard in to supper. In spite of her brother's and Di's efforts, she had not danced much. She did not find him so formidable as she expected, and before supper was over had told him all about her doves, and how the grey one sat on her shoulder, and how she loved poetry better than anything in the world, except "Donovan." John proved a sympathetic listener. He in his turn confided to her his difficulty in conveying soup over the edge of his ruff; and after providing her with a pink cream, judging with intuition unusual to his s.e.x that a pink cream is ever more acceptable to young ladyhood than a white one, he took her back to the ball-room. The crowd had thinned. The kilt and the fairy and a few other couples were careering wildly in open s.p.a.ce. John looked round in vain for Madeleine, to whom he could deliver up his snowflake, and catching sight of Mrs. Dundas on the chaperon's dais, made in her direction. Di, who was sitting with Mrs. Dundas, suddenly perceived them coming up the room together. What was it, what could it be, that indescribable feeling that went through her like a knife as she saw Miss Everard on John's arm, smiling at something he was saying to her? Had they been at supper together all this long time?

"What a striking face your cousin has!" said Mrs. Dundas. "I do not wonder that people ask who he is. I used to think him rather alarming, but Miss Everard does not seem to find him so."

"He can be alarming," said Di, lightly. "You should see him when he is discussing his country's weal, or welcoming his guests."

"Why did I say that?" she asked herself the moment the words were out of her mouth. "It's ill-natured and it's not true. Why did I say it?"

Mrs. Dundas laughed.

"It's the old story," she said. "One never sees the virtues of one's relations. Now, as he is not _my_ first cousin, I am able to perceive that he is a very remarkable person, with a jaw that means business.

There is tenacity and strength of purpose in his face. He would be a terrible person to oppose."

Di laughed, but she quailed inwardly.

"I am told he is immensely run after," continued Mrs. Dundas. "I dare say you know," in a whisper, "that the d.u.c.h.ess wants him for Lady Alice, and they _say_ he has given her encouragement, but I don't believe it. Anyhow, her mother is making her read up political economy and Bain, poor girl. It must be an appalling fate to marry a great intellect. I am thankful to say Charlie only had two ideas in his head; one was chemical manures, and the other was to marry me. Well, Miss Everard. Lady Verelst is at supper, but I will extend a wing over you till she returns. Here comes a crowd from the supper-room. Now, Miss Tempest, do go in. You owned you were hungry a minute ago, though you refused the tragic entreaties of the Turk and the stage villain."

"I was afraid," said Di; "for though the villain is my esteemed friend in private life, I know his wide hat or the turban of the infidel would catch in my crown and drag it from my head. I wish I had not come so regally. I enjoyed sewing penny rubies into my crown, and making the ermine out of an old black m.u.f.f and some rabbit-fur; but--uneasy is the head that wears a crown."

"I am very harmless and inaggressive," said John, in his most level voice. "The only person I p.r.i.c.k with my little dagger is myself. If you are hungry, I think you may safely go in to supper with me."

"Very well," said Di, rising and taking his offered arm. "I am too famished to refuse."

"She is taller than he is," said Miss Everard, as they went together down the rapidly filling room.

"No, my dear; it is only her crown. They are exactly the same height."

No one is more useful in everyday life than the man, seldom a rich man, who can command two sixpences, and can in an emergency produce a threepenny bit and some coppers. The capitalist with his halfcrown is nowhere--for the time.

In conversation, small change is everything. Who does not know the look of the clever man in society, conscious of a large banking account, but uncomfortably conscious also that, like Goldsmith, he has not a sixpence of ready money? And who has not envied the fool jingling his few halfpence on a tombstone or anywhere, to the satisfaction of himself and every one else?

Thrice-blessed is small-talk.

But between some persons it is an impossibility, though each may have a very respectable stock of his own. Like different coinages, they will not amalgamate. Di and John had not wanted any in talking to each other--till now. And now, in their hour of need, to the alarm of both, they found they were dest.i.tute. After a short mental struggle they succ.u.mbed into the abyss of the commonplace, the only neutral ground on which those who have once been open and sincere with each other can still meet--to the certain exasperation of both.

John was dutifully attentive. He procured a fresh bottle of champagne for her, and an unnibbled roll, and made suitable remarks at intervals; but her sense of irritation increased. Something in his manner annoyed her. And yet it was only the same courteous, rather expressionless manner that she remembered was habitual to him towards others. Now that it was gone she realized that there had once been a subtle difference in his voice and bearing to herself. She felt defrauded of she knew not what, and the wing of cold pheasant before her loomed larger and larger, till it seemed to stretch over the whole plate. Why on earth had she said she was hungry? And why had he brought her to the large table, where there was so much light and noise, and where she was elbowed by an enormous hairy Buffalo Bill, when she had seen as she came in that one of the little tables for two was at that instant vacant? She forgot that when she first caught sight of it she had said within herself that she would never forgive him if he had the bad taste to entrap her into a _tete-a-tete_ by taking her there.

But he had shown at once that he had no such intention. Was this dignified, formal man, with his air of distinction, and his harsh immobile face, and his black velvet dress,--was this stranger really the John with whom she had been on such easy terms six weeks ago; the John who, pale and determined, had measured swords with her in the dusk of a September evening?

And as she sat beside him in the brilliant light, amid the Babel of tongues, a voice in her heart said suddenly, "That was not the end; that was only the beginning--only the beginning."

Her eyes met his, fixed inquiringly upon her. He was only offering her some grapes, but it appeared to her that he must have heard the words, and a sense of impotent terror seized her, as the terror of one who, wrestling for his life, finds at the first throw that he is overmatched.

She rose hastily, and asked to go back to the ball-room. He complied at once, but did not speak. They went, a grave and silent couple, through the hall and down the gallery.

"Have I annoyed you?" he said at last, as they neared the ball-room.

She did not answer.