She rose hurriedly, relinquishing her teacup, which Vansittart had been wearily waiting for, with an air of having been detained by his assiduity. The callow youth, looking very fair and pretty in his brand-new pink coat, appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, Mith Gween, I have been looking for you evewywha’,” he murmured; and they went off to take their places.
Their vis-à-vis were Mr. Sefton and Miss Marchant.
“So she is dancing with him, after all,” thought Vansittart, curiously vexed. “Varium et mutabile semper femina!”
IV
“The Prelude to Some Brighter World”
While the Lancers were being danced to the good old hilarious tunes, which always give an air of boisterous gaiety to a public ballroom, Vansittart, ignoring all further obligations to his home party, went in search of little Mr. Tivett, so that by impounding that gentleman he should make sure of an introduction to Miss Marchant before the next dance.
He found the agreeable Tivett in an anteroom, an apartment much affected by sitters out, and peculiarly congenial to flirtation, where the good little man had found agreeable occupation in pinning up the lace flounce of a portly matron in yellow satin, not too portly to indulge in round dances, which imparted an alarmingly purple shade to the pearly whiteness of her complexion. “Only mother-of-pearl,” as Mr. Tivett said afterwards. “You may be quite happy about your Mechlin, dear lady,” said Tivett, after planting the last pin; “nothing but the stitches gone. No harm done to your lovely lace, I assure you.”
“He was a clumsy bear all the same. How sweet of you, dear Mr. Tivett! Ten thousand thanks. And now I’ll run back to my party, or my young man will be looking for me for the next waltz;” and the lady waddled away pantingly, to be steered carefully round the room by-and-by, in the protecting arm of a tall youth, who had an eye to free luncheons and dinners in the best part of Belgravia.
“You lucky little man,” cried Vansittart, when the lady was gone, “in favour with both youth and age. You save Mrs. Fotheringay’s priceless Mechlin, and you secure your first waltz with the belle of the ball.”
Tivett gave a little conscious laugh, and shook his suède glove at Vansittart airily.
“Pretty girl, that Miss Marchant, ain’t she?” said he, “and not a bit of nonsense about her; naivete itself. You should have heard her and the sisters prattle in the bus, while the Champernownes sat looking thunder.”
“You dog, I believe that bronchitis of yours was all humbug. Come along with me, Tivett; I am going to waylay Miss Marchant, and you must introduce me to her.”
“She’ll be parading about with that black-muzzled man, most likely. I don’t like to shoot another fellow’s bird.”
“Nonsense. She doesn’t like the black man. She didn’t want to dance with him. I am going to be Ivanhoe and rescue her from that black-bearded Templar.”
“I couldn’t quite make her out,” said Tivett. “She seemed not to want to dance with him, and yet she let him march her off. I fancy there’s an understanding between them. No doubt the puss is an arrant flirt,” said Tivett, with his little coquettish shrug, as if he were flirting himself.
Miss Marchant and Sefton, the black-bearded, came into the anteroom at the head of a procession of youths and maidens, and in the confusion made by so many couples pouring out of the big room into the small room, Vansittart contrived to waylay the lady. She dropped Sefton’s arm and turned smilingly to Tivett, and in the next moment the introduction was made, while Sefton was captured by the eldest Miss Champernowne, to whom he was engaged for the next dance.
Miss Marchant’s programme was still a blank, and she allowed Vansittart to write down his name for a couple of waltzes. There was no question now of unwritten engagements blocking the way. He gave her his arm, and they walked slowly to the ballroom, talking those commonplaces with which even the most fateful acquaintance must needs begin.
Vansittart talked of the long, cold drive; of the rooms, with their red and white panels, and vizards and other emblems of the chase; of the heat and the draughts; of the people, the faces, the frocks. Easily as she had prattled with the lively Tivett, Vansittart found her somewhat reticent, and even shy. But she waltzed delightfully, and he had never enjoyed a dance better than this dance, in which his arm was round that slender waist, and that pretty, fair head with its crystal starlets was almost level with his own, so tall and straight was she.
The waltz ended, these two dancing till the final chord, he took her for the conventional scamper through anteroom and tearoom, which communicated with each other by a canvas corridor, delightfully cool and dangerously draughty, and so back to the ballroom, where he restored her to the worthy lady in the red gown, with whom sat the younger Marchant girls, who were glad to dance one dance out of three; like those hunting men of modest pretensions who were satisfied with a day a week. They were quite aware that although tolerated by the county, and invited to garden-parties, they were not in society, and must not expect that the fine flower of the hunt, greatly in request among a majority of the fair sex, would indulge them with more than an occasional dance. Secure of an after-supper waltz with Eve, Vansittart remembered his home engagements, tore himself away from Miss Marchant, and went across the room to that galaxy of the best people in which his sister had her place. The Champernownes were wandering with their partners, but Miss Green was sitting by Lady Mandelford, and entertaining that mild old lady with the cheap cynicism which passes current
