While the Hartley party were composing themselves for their entrance to the dancing-room, a stout matron in red satin and black lace came sailing in, wrapped to the eyes in a white Shetland shawl, and at once made for the Marchants, whom she deliberately kissed, one after the other.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long, dears,” she said, in a fat, good-natured voice. “Ponto had a business appointment at Haslemere, and didn’t get back to his dinner till nine o’clock.”
Mr. Ponto was grinning in the background, very red and puffy, as from a hurried toilet, and with a scarlet camelia in his buttonhole; scarlet out of compliment to the hunt.
“Oh no, we have only just come,” answered Eve, troubled by the supercilious stare of the youngest Miss Champernowne, who was looking back from the threshold of the ballroom while the others went in, looking at Mrs. Ponto as at some natural curiosity; and indeed to a young lady whose evening frock had been produced new and immaculate from a Bond Street carton Mrs. Ponto’s crimson satin, lately “done up” with Nottingham lace, and obviously “let out” to accommodate Mrs. Ponto’s increasing bulk, was a thing to wonder at.
The three Marchants and their chaperon entered the ballroom in a cluster. The Redwold Towers party was absorbed in the brilliant throng, had gone straight into the zenith, where the two local peeresses were holding a kind of court, a court splendid with family diamonds and hereditary point d’Alençon. Mrs. Ponto made a dash for a corner of the raised bench that went round the room, and established herself and her charges in this coign of vantage.
“If we don’t get seats at once we mightn’t have a chance of sitting down for an hour,” said Mrs. Ponto. “Ain’t the room full? Now, dears, I shall stay here till someone takes me in to supper, so you can leave your fans with me, and feel you’ve got someone to come to between your dances. I had my cup of tea before I came, so I shan’t trouble about the tearoom. It’s a pretty sight, ain’t it?”
A waltz was just ending. The room was very full, but there was the usual surplus of nice-looking girls sitting down, with the usual sprinkling of men who wouldn’t dance, and who were quite satisfied to stand about and get in the way of the dancers.
The peeresses and their court were on the opposite side of the room, in a central position, which commanded dancers, band, and the festooned archway leading to the tearoom. Lady Hartley had seated herself next old Lady Mandelford, a dowager with white hair, whose son was the well-known Lord Mandelford, a man of prodigious wealth and local importance, a rustic Royalty.
Eve had shaken out her well-worn white frock. It was made of some soft woollen stuff, which her old servant Nancy had washed, so it had at least the merit of purity. On that tall and perfectly balanced figure the cheap, simple gown looked exquisite, and the fair fluffy head, with its glitter of starlets, could not have looked more enchanting had the starlets been old Brazilian diamonds, like Lady Mandelford’s, instead of cut glass mounted at Birmingham. The younger sisters had aimed higher than Eve. One in blue, the other in red, straining after Parisian fashion, in cheap silk and satin, had only achieved tawdriness. Eve, in her white frock, might challenge criticism.
There was someone on the other side of the room who thought her lovely as a dream, the same man whose eyes had gazed on her beauty in the moonlight an hour ago, and who had told himself that such a face belonged to fairyland rather than to this dull, everyday earth. He stood looking at her now, across the dancers and the crowd, as she sat demurely in her corner, her alabaster fairness set off by the scarlet background. He put his arm through Sir Hubert’s. “When you’ve done talking to Miss Champernowne I want you to introduce me to Miss Marchant,” he said.
“With all my heart. But there are three Miss Marchants. Which of the three are you dying to know?”
“The fair girl, in white.”
“Oh, she’s the eldest. They are all fair, but I suppose she’s the fairest. Come along, then. I’m to dance the Lancers, Maud tells me,” he added, lowering his voice, “and with Lady Mandelford. I’m to steer the dowager through that complicated performance.”
Sir Hubert wore the hunt colours, a scarlet coat with black velvet collar and white satin facings, and he felt that it behoved him to make some sacrifice in honour of a dance that was called the hunt ball.
“Don’t forget that you have engaged yourself to us, Mr. Vansittart,” said Miss Green, severely. “You are bespoken for eight dances out of eighteen. Three of the eighteen are gone already. You will have to make the most of the seven that remain to you after you have done your duty to us.”
He had forgotten all about those pledges given in the morning-room. Eight dances with young women for whom he cared not a straw, about whom familiarity had bred something not very far from contempt. Eight dances, a veritable bondage; while Eve Marchant was sitting meekly in her corner, partnerless. No, not partnerless; even as he looked little Mr. Tivett marched up to her with an all-conquering air, and led her in among the dancers, just beginning a waltz.
Vansittart took Miss Green’s programme out of her hand with a desperate air.
“Let’s begin at once—if you are disengaged,” he said.
“That makes one off,” she answered, laughing, as she rose and took his arm. “How dreadfully sorry for yourself you look!”
“Then my looks belie me. I was never gladder for myself. I see you have ever so many engagements already. Shall I put myself down for number eighteen?”
“Certainly. You are sure we shall have left before that number arrives.”
They were moving slowly among the dancers by this time, and a minute later they spun
