THE band was in a small gallery, built originally for musicians, at the left of the stair. As the manor house was still dependent upon gas the hall was illuminated by pine torches, safely ensconced in tall vases. The minuet, which had terminated in a romp, was over, and the guests were crowded about a punch-bowl which had been wheeled in on a buffet-wagon.
The girls had accepted the idea of bygone costumes with enthusiasm, but the men had required a good deal of persuasion. Bylant’s friends had protested at what would look like giving their countenance to a brand of fiction they despised, and at sacrificing their earnest modernism for even a night. But after they saw the contents of the chests at Bylant’s rooms they succumbed: either out of inherent boyishness or man’s secret love of plumage. There were four of them: Fellowes Merton, dramatic critic, Max Durand, columnist, De Witt Turner, stern realist in fiction, Potts Dawes, high priest of vers libre. Each was obliged to wear the costume that fitted him, approximately; and Turner, who was a very tall heavy man, went out and bought flounces of white cambric and sewed them to the edges of his court uniform’s sleeves and knee-breeches. They were all obliged to invest in long silk stockings, and applied the largest buckles they could find to their evening pumps.
Polly’s young men sulkily took what was left, and having less imagination than the others, announced that they felt like tame monkeys. Bylant sent the fanciest of the costumes to Mrs. Pelham’s house, and Geoffrey cursed his friend and vowed he would not wear it. But he did.
He had not appeared in time for the minuet, and Gita, who was standing apart, saw him as he entered and for a moment did not recognize him. He wore a long coat of pale blue satin, richly embroidered, over a white satin vest reaching to his knees, white silk stockings, satin shorts and black pumps. There were deep lace ruffles at the wrists and a jabot hung from his high stock. His white wig was tied with a blue ribbon, and altogether he looked as little like a hard-working surgeon of the twentieth century as possible. She noticed swiftly that his eyebrows were darker than she had thought, and that the blue of his eyes was intensified by the costume.
It was evident that he had entered into the spirit of the masquerade, for his habitual expression of nervous concentration had been replaced by—mingled boyish wonder and delight in his unexpected good looks? Gita knew that even as a boy he had been serious and ambitious and known few of the common impulses of youth.
He came forward smiling and shook Gita’s hand, then remembered his part and would have raised it to his lips, but she drew it away hastily.
“I wonder if you are my great-great-grandfather or my great-great-greatest?” she asked gayly.
“Your brother, perhaps. Your wig looks every bit as old as mine.”
“That was rather neat.” She swept him a curtsey, diligently practised before the psyche mirror; her spine was limbering.
“If I were really your brother I suppose I should have offered you my congratulations before this. Let us imagine I was off hunting Indians and only returned in time for the ball. . . . Eustace is a lucky dog!”
He was staring very hard at Gita, who in her gown of gold tissue and high-piled white wig above those black eyes and lashes that he had thought of more than once, seemed to him almost fantastically lovely. The sort of girl, he imagined, who, had she lived in a remoter era than the one she had conjured up tonight, would have had men besieging her tower and riding to battle with her ribbon on their lances.
“Thanks. Doesn’t he look the real thing? He padded out his governor’s uniform so that he would look portly and important.”
“He certainly looks older,” said Pelham, regarding Bylant critically, “but as determined as Fate.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Gita sharply.
“Oh—the expression’s gone. He’s no longer looking at you; he’s meditating another glass of punch.”
“You must have one, yourself. Come with me and I’ll ladle it out for you. And introduce you to the other girls.”
“But I don’t dance.”
“Then you can sit out with me. I don’t dance, either.”
She helped him to the punch and introduced him casually. Polly’s eyes glittered and she took him firmly by the arm as the musicians began to play a fox-trot. “Never mind if you don’t know how,” she said, as he protested, almost in panic. “Any man who can wear that get-up like a native—or should I say to the manor born?—can learn to dance in five minutes. Just take my hand and a good grip on my back and I’ll do the rest.”
Gita looked on with a faint throb of resentment. She remembered that Pelham’s conversation had interested her, and had intended to take him into the drawing-room. To her amazement he fell into step almost at once, and smiled down with evident appreciation into the ingenuous orbs of his teacher, who had flung her train over her arm and was dancing with her usual abandon.
“Well, are you satisfied? Your inspiration is a thundering success.” It was Eustace who was smiling down at her. He looked large and dignified in his governor’s uniform and white wig, and a massive gold chain was slung about his neck; but for the first time his narrow pointed beard did not deflect attention from his rather plump cheeks and his lower lip had lost its muscular compression.
“Oh, yes—it looks like it.” But she had drawn her brows together and looked the reverse of contented. “You’ve got yourself pretty well into your part. I don’t know that I like you so well. . . .”
“Too much punch. My eyes feel rather watery, and of course we all fortified ourselves with cocktails at my rooms. I wish you’d let me teach you this dance.”
“Well, I won’t. Run along and trot. You must have asked Joan Ryder, for she’s watching you and is the only girl not dancing.”
“So I did. But I hate to leave you alone.”
“I expected to be alone. And I’m going into the drawing-room to rest. My heels are higher than usual and my feet ache.”
She made her way past the trotting couples—they had had no time to learn even polkas and waltzes—and entered the drawing-room. It was softly lit with wax candles, and looked, she thought, much as it must have done when the costumes worn tonight were new. The paneled walls reflected the blades of yellow light, for Topper had polished them vigorously, and she had a fancy that the stately old pieces of furniture had come to life themselves and wore an air of expectancy.
She removed her slippers and elevated her feet to a stool. She was about to light a cigarette, but shrugged her shoulders. Why spoil the picture? Get out of her part? She had surrendered to illusion out there in the hall.
She wondered idly if another Gita Carteret, long forgotten, had taken possession of her. Then she frowned and jerked her shoulders. Those old Gitas at her age had either been married or were in love with a “swain”—someone as good-looking as Geoffrey Pelham, no doubt; and, if permitted a moment of retirement, would have been dreaming of his perfections, indulging in romantic musings. She wondered if any of the girls would fall in love with him tonight. Polly had evidently marked him for her own, but Polly was as cold-blooded as Eustace; she would flirt with him desperately tonight and forget his existence on the morrow.
Her mind swung uneasily to Eustace. He looked detestable in that puffed wig and with punch relaxing the muscles of his face. Like quite another person. It was all very well to act up to his character as a beefy and dissipated old governor but she’d warn him at the end of this dance that if he didn’t let the punch-bowl alone she’d cut out one part of the program. And she’d never marry him in that wig.
She moved restlessly in her chair and beat with her heels on the stool. Once more she felt an overwhelming reluctance to marry. Of course she had not changed her mind, and of course the Eustace of five months could not be obliterated by the caricature of a night. He was a dear and had inspired in her the deepest affection she had felt since the death of her mother; had, in a measure, taken her place. And he could give her the large free life she craved. But two or three months hence would be time enough. . . . Moreover . . . she dimly felt she was outraging the girls who had left this old manor with their husbands, before her. . . . Who had worn this dress of gold tissue? she wondered. A young married woman, probably, with a baby or two!
She laughed harshly, then almost cried out as she heard Geoffrey Pelham’s voice behind her.
“I suppose you are laughing at your guests,” he said, as he took a chair opposite. “The girls look charming, but the men—well, some of them give pain to a student of anatomy. I wonder if I may smoke?”
“Please do.” Gita had hastily lowered her feet and tucked them under her long skirts. “You never could guess what I was laughing at and I’ll never tell you. How do you like dancing?”
“Good exercise, I should think; but dancing with Miss Pleyden is like dancing with a ball of thistle-down. I felt as if I should be chasing instead of trying to dance with her.”
“If a girl isn’t light she’s not much of a dancer.” The answer was mechanical. She was watching his long sensitive fingers roll a cigarette. “You must be a wonderful surgeon,” she said. “One’s feet are much like one’s hands, I suppose, and perhaps that is the reason you learned to dance so quickly.”
He reddened and grinned. “That’s an idea! Are all your ideas as original as that?”
Gita never blushed, but she lowered her eyelashes more under the frank admiration of his gaze than at the compliment. “Eustace says I have flashes of intelligence. I suppose he’s at that punch-bowl again.” And she frowned.
“Eustace can carry a good deal, I fancy. Don’t worry.”
“I’ve no intention of worrying, but I suppose you know we are to be married tonight, and I don’t care to see him held up by two of his friends, equally lit—as, no doubt, has happened often enough in this house.”
“Are you to be married tonight? Elsie hadn’t told me.” He was staring at her with an expression that made her change her position suddenly and the curious sensation in her nerve-centers gave her the uncomfortable impression that some other Gita Carteret, who had worn this gown, perhaps—heaved suddenly in her long sleep.
“I was sure she had told you——”
“I only had a moment with Elsie tonight. She was at home when I arrived, to make sure I’d wear this costume; and as I gave her some trouble I suppose she forgot everything else.”
“But Eustace told me he not only intended to ask you to be his best man but to walk down the stair with me——”
“I haven’t seen Eustace for a month. If he’s written I’ve missed the letter——”
“But you will, won’t you?”
“I shall be highly honored.” He shook his shoulders impatiently. “What time is the ceremony?”
“At midnight. Then we go in to supper, and after that we have the Christmas tree. Then we’ll dance till morning, when Eustace’s friends will probably carry him home——Oh! How stupid of me! I should have asked him to stay here, but we’ve been so rushed.”
“Oh——Ah——” Pelham found himself stuttering. “It will be a unique wedding and nothing else would be appropriate for you. . . . Do you know?” he burst out irrepressibly, “I believe I should have fallen in love with you tonight if you hadn’t already been bespoken—and by my best friend. . . .”
“What nonsense!” Gita almost shrieked. “I hate that sort of nonsense! And I should have hated you if you had.”
“But surely you must be used to it by this time. Wouldn’t it be more truthful to say it merely bored you?”
“No, it wouldn’t. Men don’t fall in love with me. I don’t permit it.”
“Eustace seems to have succeeded. Or did you——”
“Eustace isn’t the kind that falls in love any more than I am. We’re wonderful friends, and as we couldn’t be together constantly without being annoyed in many ways, we decided to make the stupid concession and go through the ceremony.”
“Oh—I see.” He was staring down at his cigarette, which threatened to fall to the rug. “But—just suppose either of you should fall in love with someone else?”
Gita’s tones were heavy with scorn. “Eustace has never been in love in his life and never could be. As for myself, whatever I might have been, life made me into something quite different, and the very word makes me sick.”
“Ah—you’re a pathological case. I see. But pathological cases may sometimes be cured.”
“Not when they don’t want to be. I thank heaven I shall be free all my life, not a slave.”
“Love is a form of slavery, I should think. I’ve always steered clear of it, myself.”
“I rather thought you were taken with Polly.” Gita turned in something like panic from any further discussion of herself.
“Miss Pleyden? She is a most charming girl, but I am frank to say I hardly recall what she looks like, at the present moment. And I want as little as you do to be ‘taken’ with anyone.”
He was scowling at Gita, and she scowled back, unreasonably annoyed at his emphatic utterance.
“The music has stopped again and I must go out and row Eustace,” she said haughtily. “Please go ahead. I’ve my slippers to put on.”
“No! That is something I do for myself. Kindly go.”