Far to Seek Part 50

"One more turn?" he suggested, nipping a fresh outbreak in the bud.

"But, please--no talking."

She laughed and shook her fan at him. "Epicure!" But after all, it was an indirect compliment to her dancing: and for the s.p.a.ce of two minutes, she held her peace.

Throughout the brief pause, she rippled on, with negligible interludes; but not till they re-entered the Hall did she revert to the theme that had so exasperated Roy. There she espied Desmond, standing under an archway, staring straight before him, apparently lost in thought.

She indicated him, discreetly, with her fan. "The Happy Warrior (that's my private name for him) seems to have something on his mind. Can he have proposed--at last? I confess I'm curious. But of course _you_ know all about it, Mr Sinclair. Don't tell _me_!"

"I won't!" said Roy gravely. "You probably know more than I do."

"But I thought you were such _intimate_ friends? How superbly masculine!"

"Well--he is."

"Oh, he is! He's so firmly planted on his feet that he tacitly invites one to tilt at him! I confess I've already tried my hand--and failed. So it soothes my vanity to observe that even the Rose of Sharon isn't visibly upsetting his balance. Frankly, I'm more than a little intrigued over that affair. It seems to have reached a certain point and stuck there. At one time--I thought----"

Her thought remained unuttered. Roy was patently not attending. Miss Arden and the 'R.E. boy' had just entered the Hall.

"Don't let me keep you," she added sweetly. "It's evident _she's_ the next!"

Roy collected himself with a jerk. "You're wiser than I am! I've not asked her yet."

"Then you can save yourself the trouble and go on dancing with me! She's always booked up ahead----"

Her blue eyes challenged him laughingly; but he caught the undernote of rivalry. For half a second the scales hung even between courtesy and inclination; then, from the tail of his eye, he saw Hayes bearing down upon the other pair. That decided him. He had conceived an unreasoning dislike of Talbot Hayes.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said politely. "But--I sent word I was coming in for the dancing; and----"

"Oh, go along then and get your fingers burnt, as you deserve. But never say _I_ didn't try and save them!"

Roy laughed. "They aren't in any danger, thanks very much!"

Just as he reached Miss Arden, the R.E. boy left her, and Lance, forsaking his pillar, strolled casually to her side.

She greeted Roy with a faint lift of her brows.

"Was I unspeakable----? I apologise," he said impulsively; and her smile absolved him.

"You were wiser than you knew. You escaped an infliction. It was insufferably dull. We all smiled and smiled, till there were 'miles and miles of smiles'; and we were all bored to extinction! Ask Major Desmond!"

She acknowledged his presence with a sidelong glance. He returned it with a quick look that told Roy he had been touched on the raw.

"As I spent most of the time talking to you--and as you've just recorded your sensations, I'd rather be excused," he said with a touch of stiffness. "Your innings, I suppose, old man?" And, with a friendly nod, he moved away.

Roy, watching him go, felt almost angry with the girl, and impetuously spoke his thought.

"Poor old Desmond! What did you give him a knock for? _He_ couldn't be dull, if he tried."

"N-no," she agreed, without removing her eyes from his retreating figure. "But sometimes--he can be aggressive."

"I've never noticed it."

"How long have you known him?"

"A trifle of fifteen years."

"Quite a romantic friendship?"

Roy nodded. He did not choose to discuss his feeling for Lance with this cool, compelling young woman. Yet her very coolness goaded him to add: "I suppose men see more clearly than women that--he's one in a thousand."

"I'm--not so sure----"

"Yet you snub him as if he was a tin-pot 'sub.'"

His resentment would out; but the smile in her eyes disarmed him.

"Was it as bad as that? What a pair you are! Don't worry. We know each other's little ways by now."

It was scarcely convincing; but Lance would not thank him for interfering; and the band had struck up. No sign of a partner. It seemed the luck was 'in'.

"Did Desmond give you my message?" he asked.

"No--what?"

"Only--that I hoped you'd be magnanimous.... Is there a chance----?"

Her eyes rested deliberately on his; and the last spark of resentment flickered out. "More than you deserve! But this one does happen to be free...."

"Well, we won't waste any of it," said he:--and they danced without a break, without a word, till the perfect accord of their circling and swaying ceased with the last notes of the valse.

That was the real thing, thought Roy, but felt too shy for compliments; and they merely exchanged a smile. He had felt the pleasure was mutual.

Now he knew it.

Out through the portico they pa.s.sed into the cool green gardens, freshly watered, exhaling a smell of moist earth and the fragrance of unnumbered roses--a very whiff of Home: bushes, standards, ramblers; and everywhere--flaunting its supremacy--the Marechal Niel; sprawling over hedges, scrambling up evergreens and falling again, in cascades of moon-yellow blossoms and glossy leaves.

Roy, keenly alive to the exquisite mingling of scent and colour and evening lights--was still more alive to the silent girl at his side, who seemed to radiate both the lure and the subtle antagonism of s.e.x--in itself an inverted form of fascination.

They had strolled half round the empty bandstand before she remarked, in her cool, low-pitched voice: "You really are a flagrantly casual person, Mr Sinclair. I sometimes wonder--is it _quite_ spontaneous? Or--do you find it effective?"

Roy frankly turned and stared at her. "Effective? _What_ a question?"

Her smile puzzled and disconcerted him.

"Well, you've answered it with your usual pristine frankness! I see--it was not intentional."

"Why should it be?"

"Oh, if you don't know--I don't! I merely wondered--You did say definitely you would come to the reception. So of course--I expected you. Then you never turned up. And--naturally----!"