The dance was finished at last, and while they sat together afterwards, hot and exhausted, Muriel said suddenly, “What’s all this about Mr. Egerton—and—that maid of yours—? There are some horrid stories going round—Mrs. Vincent—Mother said she wouldn’t listen to any of them.”
Stephen was silent for a little. Then he said, in a doubtful, deliberate manner:
“Well, I’ve known John as long as anybody in The Chase, and I know he’s a jolly good fellow, but—but—It was an extraordinary affair, that, altogether. I don’t know what to make of it.” He finished with a sigh of perplexity.
Then he sat silent again, marvelling at himself, and Muriel said no more.
John came up and stood awkwardly before them. He wanted to ask Muriel for the next dance, but he was too shy to begin. His dress-suit was ill-fitting and old, his hair ruffled, his tie crooked, and as she lay back on the sofa Muriel could see a glimpse of shirt between the top of his trousers and the bottom of the shrunken and dingy white waistcoat, where any pronounced movement of his body caused a spasmodic but definite hiatus. His shirt front had buckled into a wide dent. Of all these things poor John was acutely conscious as he stood uncertainly before the two.
Stephen said heartily, “Hallo, old John, you look a bit the worse for wear. How did you get on that time?”
John stammered, “Not very well—I want Miss Tarrant to give me some more—some more instruction.” And he looked at Muriel, an appealing, pathetic look. He wished very fiercely that Stephen was not there—so easy and dashing, and certain of himself.
And Muriel had no smile for him. She glanced inquiringly at Stephen, and said, with the hard face of a statue, “I’m sorry, I’m doing the next with Mr. Byrne.” And Stephen nodded.
She danced no more with John that night. Sometimes as he sat out disconsolately with one of the Atholl women, she brushed him with her skirt, or he saw her distantly among the crowd. And he looked now with a new longing at the adorable poise of her head upon her shoulders, at the sheen and texture of her hair, at the grace and lightness of her movements, as she swam past with Stephen. He looked after her till she was lost in the press, trying to catch her eye, hoping that she might see him and smile at him. But if she saw him she never smiled. And when he was sick with love and sadness, and hated the Atholls with a bitter hatred, he left the building alone, and went home miserably by the Underground.
XII
drew on to a sultry end. In the little gardens of Hammerton the thin lawns grew yellow and bare: and there, by the river-wall, the people of The Chase took their teas and their suppers, and rested gratefully in the evening cool. One week after the dance the Byrnes were to go away into the country, and Margery had looked forward eagerly to the . But Stephen said on that he could not come: he had nearly finished the poem “Chivalry,” and he wanted to finish it before he went away; and he had much business to settle with publishers and so on: he was publishing a volume of Collected Poems, and there were questions of type and paper and cover to be determined; and he had a long article for The Epoch to do. All these things might take a week or they might take a fortnight; but he would follow Margery as soon as he might—she could feel sure of that.
Against this portentous aggregate of excuses Margery argued gently and sorrowfully but vainly. And sorrowfully she went away with Nurse and Joan and Michael Hilary. She went away to Hampshire, to the house of an old friend—a lovely place on the shore of the Solent. You drove there from Brockenhurst through the fringes of the New Forest, through marvellous regiments of ancient trees, and wild stretches of heathery waste, and startling patches of hedge and pasture, where villages with splendid names lurked slyly in unexpected hollows, and cows stood sleepily by the rich banks of little brooks. And when you came to the house, you saw suddenly the deep blue band of the Solent, coloured like the Dardanelles, and quiet like a lake. Beyond it rose the green foothills of the Island, patched with the brown of ploughlands and landslides by the sea, and far-off the faint outline of Mottistone Down and Brightstone Down, little heights that had the colour and dignity of great mountains when the light caught them in the early morning or in the evening or after the rain. On the water small white boats with red sails and green sails shot about like butterflies, and small black fishing-craft prowled methodically near the shore. And sometimes in the evening a great liner stole out of Southampton Water and crept enormously along the farther shore, her hull a beautiful grey, her funnel an indescribable tint, that was neither pink nor scarlet nor red, but fitted perfectly in the bright picture of the land and the sea. And all day there were ships passing, battleships and aged tramps and dredgers and destroyers, and sometimes a tall sailing-ship that looked like an old engraving,
