The Summons Part 49

"Joan!"

"No, not even Dennis! Promise me!"

Millie Splay was heard to be inquiring for them both.

"Very well. I promise!"

"Oh, thank you! Thank you."

The door from the hall was opened upon that cry of grat.i.tude and Millie Splay looked in.

"Oh, there you are." A movement of chairs became audible in the dining-room. "And those men are still sitting over their miserable cigars."

"They are coming," said Joan, and the next moment the dining-room door was thrown open and Sir Chichester with his guests trooped out from it.

"Now then, you girls, we ought to be off," he cried as if he had been waiting with his coat on for half an hour. "This is none of your London dances. We are in the country. You won't any of you get any partners if you don't hurry."

"Well, I like that!" returned Millie Splay. "Here we all are, absolutely waiting for you!"

Mr. Albany Todd approached Joan.

"You will keep a dance for me?"

"Of course. The third before supper," answered Joan.

Already Sir Chichester was putting on his coat in the hall.

"Come on! Come on!" he cried impatiently, and then in quite another tone, "Oh!"

The evening papers had arrived late that evening. They now lay neatly folded on the hall table. Sir Chichester pounced upon them. The throbbing motor-cars at the door, the gay figures of his guests were all forgotten. He plumped down upon a couch.

"There!" cried Millie Splay in despair. "Now we can all sit down for half an hour."

"Nonsense, my dear, nonsense! I just want to see whether there is any report of my little speech at the Flower Show yesterday." He turned over the leaves. "Not a word apparently, here! And yet it was an occasion of some importance. I can't understand these fellows."

He tossed the paper aside and took up another. "Just a second, dear!"

Millie Splay looked around at her guests with much the same expression of helpless wonderment which was so often to be seen on the face of Dennis Brown, when Miranda went racing.

"It's the limit!" she declared.

There were two, however, of the party, who were not at all distressed by Sir Chichester's procrastination. When the others streamed into the hall, Joan lingered behind, sedulously b.u.t.toning her gloves which were b.u.t.toned before; and Harry Luttrell returned to a.s.sist her. The door was three-quarters closed. From the hall no one could see them.

"You are going to dance with me in the pa.s.sage," he said.

Joan smiled at him and nodded. Now that Miranda had given way, Joan's spirits had revived. The colour was bright in her cheeks, her eyes were tender.

"Yes, but not at once."

"Why?"

"I'll finish my duty dances first," said Joan in a low voice. She did not take her eyes from his face. She let him read, she meant him to read, in her eyes what lay so close at her heart. Harry Luttrell read without an error, the print was so large, the type so clear. He took a step nearer to her.

"Joan!" he whispered; and at this, his first use of her Christian name, her face flowered like a rose.

"Thank you!" she said softly. "Oh, thank you!"

Harry Luttrell looked over his shoulder. They had the room to themselves, so long as they did not raise their voices.

"Joan," he began with a little falter in his voice. Could he have pleaded better in a thousand fine speeches, he who had seen his men wither about him on the Somme, than by that little timorous quaver in his voice? "Joan, I have something to ask of you to-night. I meant to ask it during a dance, when you couldn't run away. But I am going to ask it now."

Joan drew back sharply.

"No! Please wait!" and as she saw his face cloud, she hurried on. "Oh, don't be hurt! You misunderstand. How you misunderstand! Take me in to supper to-night, will you? And then you shall talk to me, and I'll listen." Her voice rose like clear sweet music in a lilt of joy. "I'll listen with all my heart, my hands openly in yours if you will, so that all may see and know my pride!"

"Joan!" he whispered.

"But not now! Not till then!"

Harry Luttrell did not consider what scruple in the girl's conscience held him off. The delay did not trouble him at all. She stood before him, radiant in her beauty, her happiness like an aura about her.

"Joan," he whispered again, and--how it happened who shall say?--in a second she was within his arms, her heart throbbing against his; her hands stole about his shoulders; their lips were pressed together.

"Harry! Oh, Harry!" she murmured. Then very gently she pushed him from her. She shook her head with a wistful little smile.

"I didn't mean you to do that," she said in self-reproach, "until after supper."

In the hall Sir Chichester threw down the last of the newspapers in a rage. "Not a word! Not one single miserable little word! I don't ask much, goodness knows, but----" and his voice went up in an angry incredulity. "Not one word! And I thought the _Harpoon_ was such a good paper too!"

Sir Chichester sprang to his feet. He glanced at his guests. He turned upon his wife.

"G.o.d bless my soul, Millie, what _are_ we waiting for? I'll tell you girls what it is. Unless we get off at once, we had better not go at all. Where's Joan? Where's Luttrell?"

"Here we are!" cried Luttrell from the library, and in a lower tone to Joan, he observed, "What a bore people are to be sure, aren't they?"

The guilty couple emerged into the hall. Sir Chichester surveyed them with severity.

"I don't know whether you have heard about it, Luttrell, but there's a ball to-night at Harrel, and we all rather thought of going to it," he remarked with crushing sarcasm.

"I am quite ready, sir," replied Harry humbly. Sir Chichester was mollified.

"Very well then. We'll go."

"But Mrs. Croyle isn't down yet," said Miranda.

"Stella isn't going, dear," answered Millie Splay; and a cry of dismay burst from Joan.

"Not going!"