The House by the River

have to dance occasionally out of mere courtesy with some person who was three weeks behind the times, who could not do the Jimble or the Double-Jazz Glide, or might even have an attachment for the degrading and obsolete Waltz. On the other hand, you would not be allowed to dance the entire evening with “the one woman in the room who can do the Straddle properly,” and there was a prejudice against positive indecency. So it was better from all points of view to pay a few guineas and go to a gallery or a restaurant or a nightclub with a small number of selected women, dragooned by long practice into a slavish harmony with the niceties of your particular style and favourite steps. And after all, what with the dancing lessons, and the dance-dinners, and the dance-teas, and the taxis to dances, and the taxis away from dances, and the tickets for dances, and the subscriptions to nightclubs, and the life-memberships of nightclubs which perished after two years, you had so much capital invested in the industry that you simply could not afford to have a moment’s pleasure placed in jeopardy by deficiencies of technique in your guests. Away, then, with mere Beauty and mere Charm and mere Intelligence and mere Company! Bring out the Prize Mares and show us their steps and their stamina, their powers of endurance and harmonious submission, before we consent to appear with them in the public and costly arena.

A party selected on these lines, however suitable for the serious business of the evening, could be infinitely wearisome for the purposes of dinner. Stephen thought he had never beheld two young women so little entertaining as the two Misses Atholl. All they talked of and all that George Tarrant talked of was the dances they had been to, and were going to, and could not go to, and the comparative values of various mutual friends, considered solely as dancers. It was like the tedious “shop” of the more fanatical golfers; and indeed at any moment Stephen expected to hear that some brave or other had a handicap of three at the Buxton Galleries, or had become stale from over-training, or ruined his form by ordinary walking. Stephen (or Muriel) had taken care that they should be sitting together, but though she was very lively and charming, and though her talk was less restricted in range than the talk of the Atholls, Stephen began to wish intensely that he had not come. And he thought of Margery, and was sorry that he had left her alone in the house to come and listen to this futile jabbering. She had approved enthusiastically of his coming, for she thought that he went out too little; but she had looked rather wistful, he thought, when he left. She liked dancing herself.

To John, too, the talk at dinner and the personality (if any) of the Misses Atholl was inexpressibly dull; and since he was as far away from Muriel as it was possible for him to be, and since she scarcely spoke a word to anyone but Stephen, he had nothing to console him but a few provocative glances and the hope of seeing more of her at the dance. And even this hope was dimmed by the presence of Stephen and the intimidating technicalities of the conversation. He did not understand why Stephen had come, and he rather resented his coming. Wherever Stephen was one of the company, he always felt himself closing up socially like an awed anemone in the presence of a large fish. And tonight in that dominating presence he could not see in himself the brilliant and romantic figure which he had determined to be at this party. It was far from being the kind of party he had expected.

The amazing language of young George and the Misses Atholl made it still less likely that that figure would be achieved at the dance. What were these “Rolls” and “Buzzes” and “Slides,” he wondered. And how did one do them? The art of dancing seemed to have acquired strange complexities since he had last attempted it eighteen months ago. Then with a faint pride he had mastered the Fox Trot and something they called a Boston. They had seemed very daring and difficult then, but already it seemed they were dead. At any rate they were never mentioned. John foresaw some hideous embarrassments, and he too wished fervently that he had not come.

But Muriel at least was enjoying herself. She was feeling unusually mischievous and irresponsible. She twinkled mischief at John’s glum face, and she twinkled mischief into Stephen’s eyes. Only they were different kinds of mischief. She had long been fond of John “in a kind of way”; she was still fond of him “in a kind of way.” But he was a slow and indefinite suitor, old John, and he was undeniably not exciting. However, there was no one she liked better, and if he should ever bring himself to the pitch of suggesting it, she had little doubt that she would take him. His income would not be large, but it would be certain.

But it was slow work waiting, and this evening she had Stephen Byrne; and Stephen Byrne was undeniably exciting. Not simply because he was a great poet⁠—for though she liked “poitry” in a vague way, she did not like any one poet or one piece of poetry much better than another⁠—but because he had made a success of poetry, a worldly success. He had made a name, he had even made money; he was a well-known man. And he was handsome and young, and his hair was black, and that morning in the garden he had admired her. She knew that. And she knew that she had touched his vanity by her urgency and his senses by her charm, and something naughty had stirred in her, and that too he had seen and enjoyed with a sympathetic naughtiness.