He decided that if he saw people he knew they would probably be as keen as he to keep it quiet; and he felt reassured.
He was proud of Maisie. She was wearing a blue-green gown with a low neckline and a bustle behind, and a sailor hat poised jauntily on her piled-up hair. She attracted a lot of admiring glances.
They passed a ballet theatre, an oriental circus, an American bowling green and several shooting galleries, then went into a restaurant to dine. This was a new experience for Hugh. Although restaurants were becoming more common, they were mostly used by the middle classes: upper-class people still did not like the idea of eating in public. Young men such as Edward and Micky ate out quite often, but they thought of themselves as slumming, and they only did it when they were either looking for or had already found dollymops to keep them company.
All through dinner Hugh tried not to think about Maisie's breasts. The tops of them showed lusciously above the neckline of her gown, and they were very pale, with freckles. He had seen bare breasts, just once--at Nellie's brothel a few weeks ago. But he had never touched one. Were they firm, like muscles, or limp? When a woman took off her corset, did her breasts move as she walked, or remain rigid? If you touched them, would they yield to pressure, or were they hard, like kneecaps? Would she let him touch them? He sometimes even thought about kissing them, the way the man in the brothel had kissed the whore's breasts, but this was a secret desire that he felt ashamed of. In fact he was vaguely ashamed of all these feelings. It seemed brutish to sit with a woman and think all the time of her naked body, as if he cared nothing for her, but just wanted to use her. However, he could not help it, especially with Maisie, who was so alluring.
While they were eating there was a fireworks display in another part of the gardens. The bangs and flashes upset the lions and tigers in the menagerie, and they roared their disapproval. Hugh recalled that Maisie had worked in a circus, and he asked her what it was like.
'You get to know people very well when you live so close together,' she said thoughtfully. 'It's good in some ways, bad in others. People help each other all the time. There are love affairs, lots of quarrels, sometimes fights--there were two murders in the four years I was with the circus.'
'Good heavens.'
'And the money is unreliable.'
'Why?'
'When people need to economize, entertainment is the first thing they cut out.'
'I'd never thought of that. I must remember not to invest the bank's money in any form of entertainment business.'
She smiled. 'Do you think about finance all the time?'
No, Hugh thought, I think about your breasts all the time. He said: 'You have to understand that I'm the son of the black sheep of the family. I know more about banking than the other young Pilasters, but I have to work doubly hard to prove my worth.'
'Why is it so important to prove yourself?'
Good question, Hugh thought. He considered. After a minute he said: 'I've always been that way, I suppose. At school I just had to be top of the class. And my father's failure made it worse: everyone thinks I'm going to go the same way, and I have to show them they're wrong.'
'In a way I feel the same, you know. I'm never going to live the way my mam did, always on the edge of destitution. I'm going to have money, I don't care what I have to do.'
As gently as he could, Hugh said: 'Is that why you go around with Solly?'
She frowned, and for a moment he thought she was going to be angry, but that passed and she smiled ironically. 'I suppose that's a fair question. If you want to know the truth, I'm not proud of my connection with Solly. I misled him with certain ... expectations.'
Hugh was surprised. Did that mean she had not gone all the way with Solly? 'He seems to like you.'
'And I like him. But comradeship isn't what he wants, and it never was, and I always knew that.'
'I see what you mean.' Hugh decided she had not gone all the way with Solly, and that meant she might not be willing to do it with him. He felt both disappointed and relieved: disappointed because he was so hungry for her, relieved because he was so nervous about it.
'You seem pleased about something,' said Maisie.
'I suppose I'm glad to hear that you and Solly are only comrades.'
She looked a little sad, and he wondered if he had said the wrong thing.
He paid for their dinner. It was quite expensive but he had brought the money he had been saving for his next suit of clothes, nineteen shillings, so he had plenty of cash. When they left the restaurant the people in the gardens seemed more boisterous than they had earlier, no doubt because they had consumed a good deal of beer and gin in the interim.
They came upon a dance floor. Dancing was something Hugh felt confident about: it was the only subject that had been well taught at the Folkestone Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen.
He led Maisie onto the floor and took her in his arms for the first time. His fingertips tingled as he rested his right hand in the small of her back, just above her bustle. He could feel the warmth of her body through her clothing. With his left hand he held hers, and she gave it a squeeze: the sensation thrilled him.
At the end of the first dance he smiled at her, feeling pleased, and to his surprise she reached up and touched his mouth with a fingertip. 'I like it when you grin,' she said. 'You look boyish.'
'Boyish' was not exactly the impression he was trying to give, but at this point anything that pleased her was all right with him.
They danced again. They were good partners: although Maisie was short, Hugh was only a little taller, and they were both light on their feet. He had danced with dozens of girls, if not hundreds, but he had never enjoyed it this much. He felt as if he was only now discovering the delightful sensation of holding a woman close, moving and swaying with the music, and executing complicated steps in unison.
'Are you tired?' he asked her at the end of the dance.
'Certainly not!'
They danced again.
At society balls it was bad manners to dance with the same girl more than twice. You had to lead her off the floor and offer to fetch her some champagne or a sorbet. Hugh had always chafed at such regulations, and now he felt joyfully liberated to be an anonymous reveler at this public dance.
They stayed on the floor until midnight, when the music stopped.
All the couples left the dance floor and moved on to the garden paths. Hugh noticed that many of the men kept their arms around their partners, even though they were no longer dancing; so, with some trepidation, he did the same. Maisie did not seem to mind.
The festivities were becoming unruly. Beside the paths there were occasional small cabins, like boxes at the opera, where people could sit and dine and watch the crowds walk by. Some of the cabins had been rented by groups of undergraduates who were now drunk. A man walking in front of Hugh had his top hat playfully knocked off his head, and Hugh himself had to duck to avoid a flying loaf of bread. He held Maisie closer to
