Greatheart Part 5

Then with a shrug Eustace turned from the contest. "Oh, go your own way!

It's all one to me. You're one of the slow coaches that never get anywhere."

Scott said nothing whatever. He smoked his cigarette without a sign of perturbation. Save for a certain steeliness in his pale eyes, his habitually placid expression remained unaltered.

He walked in silence for a few moments, then without effort began to talk in a general strain of their journey of the previous day. Had Isabel cared about the sleigh-ride? If so, they would go again one day.

She lighted up in response with an animation which she had not displayed during the whole walk. Her eyes shone a little, as with a far-off fire of grat.i.tude.

"I should like it if you would, Stumpy," she said.

"Then we will certainly go," he said. "I should enjoy it very much."

Eustace came out of a somewhat sullen silence to throw a glance of half-reluctant approval towards his brother. He plainly regarded Scott's move as an achievement of some importance.

"Yes, go by all means!" he said. "Enjoy yourselves. That's all I ask."

Isabel's faint smile flitted across her tired face, but she said nothing.

Only as they reached and entered the hotel, she pressed Scott's hand for a moment in both her own.

CHAPTER IV

THE MAGICIAN

"Well, Dinah, my dear, are you ready?"

Rose de Vigne, very slim and graceful, with her beautiful hair mounted high above her white forehead and falling in a shower of golden ringlets behind after the style of a hundred years ago, stood on the threshold of Dinah's room, awaiting permission to enter. Her dress was of palest green satin brocade, a genuine Court dress of a century old. Her arms and neck gleamed with a snowy whiteness. She looked as if she had just stepped out of an ancient picture.

There came an impatient cry from within the room. "Oh, come in! Come in!

I'm not nearly ready,--never shall be, I think. Where is Yvonne? Couldn't she spare me a single moment?"

The beautiful lady entered with a smile. She could afford to smile, being complete to the last detail and quite sure of taking the ballroom by storm. She found Dinah scurrying barefooted about the room with her hair in a loose bunch on her neck, her attire of the scantiest description, her expression one of wild desperation.

"I've lost my stockings. Where can they be? I know I had them this morning. Can Yvonne have taken them by mistake? She put everything ready for me,--or said she had."

The bed was littered with articles of clothing all flung together in hopeless confusion. Rose came forward. "Surely Yvonne didn't leave your things like this?" she said.

"No. I've been hunting through everything for the stockings. Where can they be? I shall have to go without them, that's all."

"My dear child, they can't be far away. You had better get on with your hair while I look for them. I am afraid you will not be able to count on any help from Yvonne to-night. She has only just finished dressing me, and has gone now to help Mother. You know what that means."

"Oh, goodness, yes!" said Dinah. "I wish I'd never gone in for this stupid fancy dress at all. I shall never be done."

Rose smiled in her indulgent way. She was always kind to Dinah. "Well, I can help you for a few minutes. I can't think how you come to be so late.

I thought you came in long ago."

"Yes, but Billy wanted some b.u.t.tons sewn on, and that hindered me." Dinah was dragging at her hair with impatient fingers. "What a swell you look, Rose! I'm sure no one will dare to ask you for any but square dances."

"Do you think so, dear?" said Rose, looking at herself complacently in the gla.s.s over Dinah's head.

Dinah made a sudden and hideous grimace. "Oh, drat my hair! I can't do anything with it. I believe I shall cut it all off, put on just a pinafore, and go as a piccaninny."

"That sounds a little vulgar," observed Rose. "There are your stockings under the bed. You must have dropped them under. I should think the more simply you do your hair the better if you are going to wear a coloured kerchief over it. You have natural ringlets in front, and that is the only part that will show."

"And they will hang down over my eyes," retorted Dinah, "unless I fasten them back with a comb, which I haven't got. Oh, don't stay, Rose! I know you are wanting to go, and you can't help me. I shall manage somehow."

"Are you quite sure?" said Rose turning again to survey herself.

"Quite--quite! I shall get on best alone. I'm in a bad temper too, and I want to use language--horrid language," said Dinah, tugging viciously at her dark hair.

Rose lowered her stately gaze and watched her for a moment. Then as Dinah's green eyes suddenly flashed resentful enquiry upon her she lightly touched the girl's flushed cheek, and turned away. "Poor little Dinah!" she said.

The door closed upon her graceful figure in its old-world, sweeping robe and Dinah whizzed round from the gla.s.s like a naughty fairy in a rage.

"Rose de Vigne, I hate you!" she said aloud, and stamped her unshod foot upon the floor.

A period of uninterrupted misfortune followed this outburst. Everything went wrong. The costume which the French maid had so deftly fitted upon her that morning refused to be adjusted properly. The fastenings baffled her, and finally a hook at the back took firm hold of the lawn of her sleeve and maliciously refused to be disentangled therefrom.

Dinah struggled for freedom for some minutes till the lawn began to tear, and then at last she became desperate. "Billy must do it," she said, and almost in tears she threw open the door and ran down the pa.s.sage.

Billy's room was round a corner, and this end of the corridor was dim. As she turned it, she almost collided with a figure coming in the opposite direction--a boyish-looking figure in evening dress which she instantly took for Billy.

"Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed. "Do come along and help me like a saint! I'm in such a fix."

There was an instant's pause before she discovered her mistake, and then in the same moment a man's voice answered her.

"Of course I will help you with pleasure. What is wrong?"

Dinah started back, as if she would flee in dismay. But perhaps it was the kindness of his response, or possibly only the extremity of her need--something held her there. She stood her ground as it were in spite of herself.

"Oh, it is you! I do beg your pardon. I thought it was Billy. I've got my sleeve caught up at the back, and I want him to undo it."

"I'll undo it if you will allow me," said Scott.

"Oh, would you? How awfully kind! My arm is nearly broken with trying to get free. You can't see here though," said Dinah. "There's a light by my door."

"Let us go to it then!" said Scott. "I know what it is to have things go wrong at a critical time."

He accompanied her back again with the utmost simplicity, stopped by the light, and proceeded with considerable deftness to remedy the mischief.

"Oh, thank you!" said Dinah, with heart-felt grat.i.tude as he freed her at last. "Billy would have torn the stuff in all directions. I'm dressing against time, you see, and I've no one to help me."

"Do you want any more help?" asked Scott, looking at her with a quizzical light in his eyes.

She laughed, albeit she was still not far from tears. "Yes, I want someone to pin a handkerchief on my head in the proper Italian fashion. I don't look much like a _contadina_ yet, do I?"