Vansittart booked himself for his second dance with Miss Green, and then went to look for the Champernownes. He found Claudia enjoying a confidential chat with Mr. Sefton in a corner of the anteroom, and avoided them both as if they had been plague-stricken.
He discovered a younger Champernowne in the tearoom, and offered himself for those dances so lightly promised in the morning. She had kept some numbers open for him. He went to the other sister and wrote his name on her programme for other two waltzes, and this, with his number on Miss Green’s programme, and the two still owing to Claudia, left him a very poor chance of sitting out a dance or two with Miss Marchant. He pined for one quiet quarter of an hour of confidential talk with her. He wanted to make friends with her; so that she should prattle to him as freely as she had prattled to little Tivett.
That golden opportunity did not come till late in the evening. His dance with Claudia Champernowne came at just the hour when all the best people were pouring into the supper-room. When their waltz was over he could not avoid asking her to go in to supper, and she promptly accepted.
“There will be a crowd,” she said, “but we shall get the first of the oysters, and the scrimmage will be more fun than a half-empty room.”
It was an hour later when he danced his extra with Eve Marchant. The next dance was the Caledonians.
“Surely you are not going to dance the Caledonians?” he said. “It is a cruelty to keep the floor from all those portly matrons in fine raiment who are sighing for a square dance.”
“I am happy to say I am not engaged for the Caledonians.”
“Then let us go into that little talking-room. Of course you have been in to supper?”
Miss Marchant owned blushingly that she had not supped.
“Poor dear Mrs. Ponto had been sitting so long in her corner,” she said, “so I asked my last partner to take her in.”
“Poor dear partner, I think. What a sacrifice for him! Why, you must be famishing. And I’m afraid all the oysters must have been eaten by this time.”
“I can be quite happy without oysters.”
“Can you? The youngest Miss Champernowne was inclined to scold the waiters because of the poor supply of natives.”
“The Miss Champernownes are used to such luxuries as oysters, and can’t do without them,” laughed Eve. “My sisters and I have been brought up in a harder manner.”
“Curious, isn’t it, how fashion changes?” said Vansittart, taking her to a little table in the furthest corner of the room—a tiny table that would only just accommodate two people. “When Byron was in society it was considered odious for a young woman to care what she eat, or to have a healthy appetite. Nowadays, it is rather chic for a girl to be a gourmet. We have bread-and-butter Misses affecting a fine taste in dry champagne and a passion for quails. And now what can I get you—mayonnaise lobster, truffled turkey, boar’s head, chicken?”
She decided for chicken, and trifled with a wing while Vansittart sipped a glass of champagne, enchanted to have her all to himself in this corner, wishing that the Caledonians might last forever, and inclined to be reckless about his engagement for the waltz that was to follow.
“You have been dancing every dance, I think,” he said.
“No; not all. I sat in my corner with Mrs. Ponto all through a most exquisite waltz.”
“Was it possible you had no partner?”
“Mr. Sefton asked me to dance—and I told him I was tired.”
“I have an idea you don’t much like Mr. Sefton?”
“No, he’s not a favourite of mine; but he has always been very kind, and he has given my father some shooting; so I don’t want to be rude to him.”
“Was that why you danced the Lancers with him, after refusing him a dance?”
“How did you know I refused him? Ah, I remember, you were sitting in the tearoom. You must have heard all we said.”
“Every syllable.”
“How flattering to the lady who was talking to you!”
“Dear Miss Green! Oh, she would not mind. She is so pleased with her own conversation that it does not matter whether people listen or not. She is a lady who shakes hands with herself every morning, and says, ‘My dear soul, you are really the cleverest, wittiest, brightest creature I know—not exactly beautiful, but infinitely charming,’ and in that humour she comes smiling down to breakfast, and lets us all see what poor creatures she thinks us.”
“I find you can be ill-natured, Mr. Vansittart. You are not like Lady Hartley, who has always a kind word to say of everyone.”
“That is my sister’s little way. She pays most of her debts with kind words.”
“Ah, but she has given us more than words. She asks us to her delightful summer parties, and seems always glad to see us.”
“She is very lucky to have such young ladies at her parties. What would a garden-party be if there were not faces in the crowd worth following and asking questions about? But what of Mr. Sefton? I am interested in Mr. Sefton.”
“Why?” she asked, with innocent wonder.
“Oh, for various reasons. My father and his father were once friends. And then he is a landowner, a great man in these parts, and one always wants to know about such people.”
“Yes, he has a fine estate, and he is said to be rich; but he is not as popular as his father was. I remember old Mr. Sefton, a splendid gentleman. But this Mr. Sefton and my father get on very well together.”
“You say he has been kind. How kind?”
“He asks my father to shooting parties, and he sends us game, and grapes, and pines. I would rather for my own part that he didn’t, for we can give him nothing in return. Sophy wanted to work him a pair of slippers—preposterous—as if he were a curate! My
