MEANWHILE, all was going on merrily below, dance succeeding dance. The music was good, the floor was good. “Dolff’s men” had fully made up the number of partners necessary, and left a few over to support the doorway lest it should fall. Dolff himself, in the midst of the gay crowd which had been collected to give him pleasure, wandered about distractedly, seeking Janet, but unable to find her, and teasing Gussy, who had certainly enough to worry her without his constant questions, by demands where Janet was.
Gussy had plenty of her own affairs on hand. The hours were passing—those hours which she had felt to be so full of fate—and nothing was happening; and her heart was sore with unfulfilled expectations. To think that while her mind was thus torn asunder, while she was almost unconsciously, but with the keenest anxiety, watching for one figure in the crowd, yet carrying on the necessary conversations, listening to what ever nonsense might be said to her, laughing at the smallest jokes, presenting generally the aspect to all around her of a disengaged and cheerful spirit, while suffering an endless torture of suspense—to think that then Dolff should assail her with his questions:
“Where is Miss Summerhayes? Have you seen Miss Summerhayes? This is our dance. Where has she disappeared to? What has become of her? Gussy, have you seen Miss Summerhayes?”
Gussy tried to push off her brother’s inquiries with trifling answers, but finally found that this last straw of provocation was more than she could bear.
“I am not Janet’s keeper,” she said, with angry impatience. “You had better attend to your guests, Dolff, and let Miss Summerhayes look after herself.”
“By Jove!” said Dolff, who was almost as exasperated as she, “I knew you were selfish, Gussy, but never so bad as that.”
They glared at each other for a moment, both at the end of their patience, distracted, abandoned, left to themselves. It was a kind of relief thus to snarl at each other, to let out their offence and trouble, persuading themselves each that the intolerableness of the other was the cause. But Gussy’s case was by far the harder of the two. Janet had given Dolff no right to resent her absence—but the other—the other! It did poor Gussy good for a moment to be able to be angry with Dolff.
When Meredith came to her for the third dance she had given him, the two first of which he had danced conscientiously all through without a word that could not be breathed in the course of the twistings and whirling, Gussy declared she was too tired to dance any more.
“Then let us sit it out together,” he said; “there is a nice corner I know where we may be as private as if we were all alone, yet see everybody—if you wish to see everybody. I think it must have been arranged expressly for you and me there are two such comfortable chairs.”
“You have put that corner to use before,” said Gussy.
“Several times,” he answered, promptly; “one must do something with one’s partner if, for example, she doesn’t dance well, or there is any other drawback. I have been conducting myself more or less like the son of the house to-night. You may think me presumptuous to say so, but I think, after Dolff, I have almost the best right to look after your guests, Gussy, and see that it goes off well. Do you allow my claim?”
In that dark corner which he had occupied a little before with Janet it was not possible to see the warm blush, like a fresh tide of life, which came over Gussy’s face; but something of that warm, sweet flood of consciousness could be made out in the melting of her voice.
“Oh, yes,” she said, with a happy tremor, “you have known us longer than any one here—almost all your life.”
“All our lives,” said Meredith, with a little emphasis on the pronoun. “I can’t remember the time when we didn’t know each other, can you, Gussy? There is nothing else can come so near as that. And I have been taking it upon me to entertain your guests as if they were my own.”
“Thank you very much for that, Charley.”
“Oh no, you need not thank me. You will do as much or more for me when the time comes—when I shall have guests of my own. But I am not well enough off to think of that yet. A little patience and then my turn will come.”
“I thought,” said Gussy, “you were telling mamma the other night——”
“Oh, that I have made a beginning. Yes, I have made a beginning; and you may be sure it will not be my fault if it does not go on: a year perhaps, or so, and I shall feel that I am justified—ah, Gussy, I wish that time was come.”
“You must not insist on too much,” said Gussy, softly; “to begin is the great matter.”
“So it is; but I must have the means to get a nice house and everything suitable before—— When it comes to having guests, you know, there must be something to give them, and—better things even than that. Ah, me! waiting is slow work.” Gussy echoed the sigh from the bottom of her heart. “But I hope there’s a good time coming,” continued Meredith, with a smile, putting his hand upon Gussy’s, and giving it a warm pressure.
He looked many things which he did not say, and poor Gussy sat in a sort of trance of mortified happiness, feeling herself put back, checked, as if it were she who was over-eager and impatient, yet so assured of his tenderness, so moved by the high-mindedness of his determination to have everything worthy of her before he should ask her to share his fate, that her heart melted within her in answering tenderness and consent. No, she would never, could never doubt him more. His hand laid upon her hand was not enough for the response she was so ready to give: but he knew and trusted her, as she felt she ought always to have known and trusted him. And there was a moment’s silence, to Gussy more eloquent than any words; a sort of noiseless betrothal, binding them to each other till the time for full disclosure and explanation should come. He stooped down at last and kissed her hand as if his feelings were getting too much for him, and then broke into remarks upon the dancers, who were once more streaming out into the cooler space at the end of the waltz. He called her attention to two or three, and made her laugh. She felt no longer any difficulty in being amused.
“But I am afraid I must go soon,” she said; “I am engaged for the next dance.”
“Sit close,” said Meredith, “and the man will never find you. Dolff’s men are all as blind as bats. They know nobody, and they go prowling round trying to recognize some girl they have only seen for a moment. There is one who has begun his round already, peering at everybody. I hope he is not your man?”
“Perhaps he is,” said Gussy, drawing further back; “I don’t know him any more than he knows me.”
“Then you had far better stop with one who does know you, and—something more,” said Meredith. “There! he has passed and you are safe. Ah, so here is old Vicars again! Where does he always appear from, whenever you want him, that old man?”
“He appears—from where he lives, Charley. You know mamma lets him have the coachman’s room in the wing.”
“That wing has always seemed a most mysterious place to me. How do you get into it? Do you strike upon a trap-door, and does he start up through it like a jack-in-the-box?”
“Nonsense,” said Gussy. “There is a door at the back, as I am sure you must have seen.”
Her tone was quite simple and unembarrassed, and Meredith for a moment was silent. He went on again, however, immediately.
“There must be some nice rooms up there. I can’t think why you never use them. Almost enough for a young ménage. For Dolff and his wife, for instance, if he was to make a match with Miss Summerhayes, or even——”
“Charley, I wish you would not always make fun of those two. There is no chance whatever of Dolff making a match with Miss Summerhayes. My mother would be furious; and it is really unkind to Janet, who, I am sure, has not the least idea——”
“Well, my dear Gussy, well, I’ll say nothing more; but if Dolff is the person that has the idea, so much the safer is it to come about. You know your mother never denied him anything. And the wing looks as if it could put up a pair of people famously. It is a great pity to leave it without use.”
“Mamma does make some use of it,” said Gussy; “but,” she added, after a pause, “there is not so much room as you think.”
“I know what use I should put it to if it were mine. I suppose Mrs. Harwood keeps the lumber in it. I should clear away all that ivy, and open the windows, and turn out the rubbish, and then—— Ah, well, I must put away all these dreams for the next year.”
Gussy sat with one hand still in his, with her heart full of happiness, yet conscious of something wanting. She was melted beyond expression by his tone, and by all that he said or inferred but did not say. She was not even aware at the moment of what it was that was wanting. The ache was calmed. She was subdued and charmed away into an enchanted land. To have less than perfect faith in him would have been an offence against every tradition of her heart, and yet——
Meanwhile, Dolff was rushing everywhere, winding his way among all the groups, seeking Janet.
“Mother, have you seen Miss Summerhayes? Where is Miss Summerhayes? The next is our dance” (it was the second or third which he had thus described), “and I can’t find her anywhere. Ju, where is Miss Summerhayes?”
“She must have run up to her room. Perhaps she tore her dress. Perhaps she is mending up somebody else’s gown. Perhaps she was tired.”
These were the explanations that were rained upon him, till Dolff became desperate. He seized Julia by the arm, and conducted her perforce to the foot of the stairs. Julia was enjoying herself very much, dancing every dance, and determining in her own mind that no force should get her to bed before everything was over. She was very indignant, and struggled as Dolff rushed her through the room without the least regard for her opinion.
“Go and fetch Miss Summerhayes. Tell her it’s our dance, and I’m waiting. Go and fetch Miss Summerhayes, Ju.”
“But it’s my dance as well as yours,” said Julia. “I’m going to dance with one of your men—the man with the red hair. Oh, it’s a shame! If Janet went away it must have been because she was tired. I won’t go! Oh! I won’t go!”
But there were some points on which Julia was constrained to yield. Dolff was very good-natured, but there were moments when nothing was to be done with him. She was finally compelled to obey, and flew like an arrow from the bow upstairs and to the locked door of Janet’s room, against which she threw herself in her impatience.
“Janet, you’re to come directly,” cried Julia. “Dolff says it’s his dance. You’re to come directly, or else I shall lose mine, for I daren’t go back without you, and my partner will get some one else. Janet, Janet, come away!”
After a minute the door opened, and Janet came out. She was wiping away the tears from her eyelashes, but, notwithstanding these tears, she looked so resplendent that Julia was dazzled.
“What have you been doing to yourself? Crying generally makes one’s nose red, but you look as if you were all made of diamonds,” said the girl. “Come along, come along. I shall lose my dance, and it will be all because of you.”
Dolff was standing impatient at the foot of the stairs.
“Oh, here you are at last, Miss Summerhayes,” he cried. He held out his arm for her hand, and led her away hurriedly. “You have almost spoilt my night for me,” he cried; “where have you been? I did not get up a dance, and rummage up men, and all that, for you to hide yourself upstairs.”
“But I did not want you either to give a dance or to rummage up men,” said Janet, with a laugh.
“I know you don’t care,” he said. “It is nothing to you that it’s all as dull as ditch water to me when you are away: and now we must dance when I wanted to talk. I have a hundred thousand things to say, and I quite calculated upon to-night for that: for I can’t talk to you at all most days. Let’s dance and get it over, and then we can go away somewhere and talk.”
But Janet did not want to be talked to by Dolff. She would not let him off a single round, but danced till the very last bar. And poor Dolff got out of breath easily, and could not talk while he was dancing. He did not dance very well. He was not very fond of it, he allowed, on ordinary occasions, and he was most anxious to break off now. When at last the waltz was over, he hurried her off to find a corner somewhere—one of those which he had himself arranged so carefully for the accommodation of stray pairs of wanderers, and in which he had imagined himself pouring out his heart to Janet. But, to his wrath and dismay, Dolff found that every one was filled. He made a hurried round, holding Janet’s hand tightly within his arm, to keep her from slipping away. But wherever Dolff had placed a couple of chairs consecrated to himself and the lady of his affections there were a frivolous pair established before him—the gentleman lolling with his legs crossed, the lady sitting prim beside him—the most uninteresting, the most prosaic of couples. Dolff set his teeth when he came to the end and found no place.
“Will you come and have some tea?” he said, dolefully, “or an ice, or something? As every nook is filled, it must be quiet there. Oh, Miss Summerhayes, this is not what I hoped: I have been looking forward to it so long, and there is not a spot where you can sit down.”
“Really. I don’t want at all to sit down,” said Janet; “let us walk about. We can talk just as well as if we were sitting down. And I am not tired.”
“No, it is not all the same,” said Dolff. “We can talk, I suppose; but not about what I wanted, Miss Summerhayes—about the ladies in white and the ladies in blue, perhaps, and who is flirting and who is not, and the man with the red hair, and all that. That is what ladies talk about between the dances; but that’s not my style, Miss Summerhayes.”
“Is it not?” said Janet, “it seems very innocent talk.”
“Innocent enough—meaning nothing,” said Dolff, with scorn; “like what we talk about in the evenings, when we’re all together, and you scarcely say anything at all. I hoped we might have had a little real conversation to-night.”
“I am very sorry,” said Janet. “I fear it was my fault, but I forgot. I am very fond of dancing. Who is that lady that looked at you so significantly, Mr. Harwood?”
“Oh,” said Dolff, with a groan, “I am booked to her for the next dance. And there are those infernal fellows—I beg your pardon, Miss Summerhayes—beginning to tune up!”