THE BALL.
When Reg and Amy, accompanied by Mrs. Whyte, arrived, the ball was in
full swing. This Bachelors' Ball was an annual affair of some more than
local reputation and the suburban element was frequently enforced, and
leavened, by guests from the West End, who at other periods of the year
professed never to have heard of Brixton. The ball-room was beautifully
decorated with hangings of dainty tints. Palms and ferns, artistically
placed with fairy lamps glimmering through the masses of greenery, made
inviting corners, that attracted the weary dancers. No expense had been
spared to make the scene one of splendour and attraction, and it fairly
took good Mrs. Whyte's breath away. Reg succeeded in finding two vacant
seats near a Colonel's widow, who was an acquaintance of Mrs. Whyte
and, having comfortably settled the old lady, offered his arm to Amy and
they were soon whirling together in the mazy throng of waltzers.
They made a striking couple; the tall, handsome man and the slight,
willowy girl, with her beautiful face flushed with the exercise, and
many were the enquiries made as to who and what they were. The dance
over, Reg reserved for himself nine of the items on her card, leaving
the remainder, as he laughingly said, to her numerous admirers to fight
over. Then he left her for a moment to greet some friends.
"Miss Johnson, may I introduce a great friend of mine?" said a voice
behind her.
Amy turned to find Tommy smiling complacently at her, accompanied by a
handsome, dark stranger.
"Certainly, Mr. Thomas."
"Miss Johnson--Mr. Wyckliffe," and the two met. Amy was too full of
enjoyment to notice more than that her new acquaintance had a quiet
manner, soft attractive voice, and a peculiarly penetrating gaze. She
surrendered her programme, and, as he passed it back to her, he merely
bowed, and said:
"I have taken sixteen and eighteen, thank you."
The ball went merrily forward, both Reg and Amy enjoying themselves to
the full. At the sixteenth dance Reg found himself disengaged, and went
outside to have a smoke. He was scarcely half through his cigarette,
when the fancy seized him to go back to the ball-room and watch Amy
dancing. Standing in the doorway he marked each couple pass him, but
without discovering the object of his search. He made his way round to
Mrs. Whyte, but that good lady could only tell him that she had been
claimed by her partner, Mr. Wyckliffe. Reg felt vaguely disturbed, how
or why he scarcely knew; but he remembered Amy had once told him she
never sat out a dance except with an old friend. He wandered away
aimlessly, and when the next dance had begun and still Amy did not
appear, he decided to look for her. Pausing at the refreshment buffet he
was in the act of raising a glass to his lips when his eye caught sight
of a portion of a dress he knew too well, partly hidden by some drapery
hanging over a corner of the gallery. In the twinkling of an eye he ran
up the stairs. Amy saw him coming, and drawing the drapery on one side,
smiled at him. It was enough to dispel all his troublesome thoughts, and
he came up to her and laughingly said:
"Ah, here you are, you truant. It is too bad to disappoint your partners
in this way."
"Reg, this is Mr. Wyckliffe," said she, referring to her partner.
"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Morris," said that gentleman, rising
with a smile and extending his hand.
"Thanks. I am delighted to make your acquaintance," answered Reg,
shaking warmly in his genuine way the hand extended to him.
"Miss Johnson has been good enough to make a confidant of me," continued
Wyck, lightly. "She has told me of your engagement and I hope you will
let me congratulate you. You are a lucky man."
"I am, indeed," answered Reg, as politely as he could, though he felt
strongly inclined to resent the familiarity from a man who had only met
him and his _fiancee_ for the first time that evening.
"Miss Johnson mentioned that she was engaged for this dance with you,
but as I have the next she agreed to sit them both out with me."
Reg began to grow uncomfortable, and turned to Amy, and said, "It's very
cold here, Amy, I think you ought to go back, as Mrs. Whyte is looking
for you."
"Oh! you won't desert me, will you, Miss Johnson?" said Wyck, gazing at
her in an intense way, and exerting his will-power to the utmost.
"I'd rather stay, Reg," she answered, but the decision seemed to come
from her reluctantly.
"I'll take care of her, Morris, never fear," said Wyck, smiling.
Reg looked from one to the other. He felt helpless, and in a predicament
from which only a scene, which he abhorred, would extricate him. It was
galling in the extreme to find a total stranger dictating to the girl he
was engaged to.
"Then you won't come?" he asked.
"Not yet, Reg," she replied, in a languid manner, and he turned sharply
on his heel and descended the stairs in a mood the reverse of amiable.
Here he ran against Tommy, whom he stopped and asked:
"Who's your friend Wyckliffe, Thomas?"
"Oh, old Wyck is a great friend of mine. Why do you ask? You don't look
well, old chap. Come and have something to pull you together."
"No thanks. Look here, Thomas, I don't like the way your friend is going
on."
"Why, what's he done?" asked Tommy, in feigned surprise, though he was
rather enjoying the joke of badgering the jealous lover.
"Miss Johnson is an innocent girl, not up to the free-and-easy flirting
ways of your Society friends, and she should not be compromised by
sitting out three dances with a stranger."
"Come, old chap. You make too much fuss over a small matter. But look,
there is Mrs. Whyte beckoning to you," said he, pointing to the lady in
question, who was anxiously watching them. "I won't keep you."
"Where's Amy, Reg?" said Mrs. Whyte as he came near, in an anxious
voice, somewhat louder than strict etiquette demanded.
Reg sat down beside her and told her Amy was sitting out with Mr.
Wyckliffe.
"What, three dances, Reg. I think I had better go to her."
"There is no need for that, for here she comes," answered Reg, quickly,
as he saw Amy suddenly appear in the ball-room. A fierce pang of
jealousy seized him when he noticed how she hung on her partner's arm.
"Hadn't we better go home, mother?" he said, "I am tired of this."
"Really, Mrs. Whyte," said Wyck, coming up to her with a bland
expression of unconsciousness, "I must apologize for keeping Miss
Johnson away from you so long; but it was so cool and pleasant in the
gallery."
Mrs. Whyte merely bowed and said:
"Amy, come and let us fetch our cloaks, we are going home."
"All right, mother," she answered, quietly, her eyes fixed on Wyck's
departing figure.
They passed him again in the entrance hall, and as Amy shook hands with
him and bade him good-night, Reg was maddened to notice Wyck stoop and
whisper something to her, and to see her smile and nod in return.
The demeanour of the party on their return was so different, that even
the old cabby could not help noticing it. Incessant chattering and gay
bursts of laughter marked their journey to the ball-room, that "it did
one's heart good," as the cabby put it. But on the return journey
everyone was silent, gloomy and depressed. Whyte was waiting at the gate
for them and, as he opened the door, cried out in his cheery voice,
"Back again, my children," but, to his surprise, there was no response
and, seeing Mrs. Whyte signal him to be quiet, he gave a low whistle and
murmured under his breath, with a chuckle, "a lover's quarrel, by Jove."
Amy, on entering the house, went straight to her room and locked herself
in; an occurrence so unique in the history of the Mia-Mia, that old
Whyte stared open-mouthed at Reg, who had flung himself on the sofa, and
asked:
"What's the matter, Reg?"
"I don't know, dad. I don't understand it at all."
"Have you quarrelled?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Reg told him all he knew about the matter, which certainly did not seem
much in the telling, and sitting-out being a common occurrence at balls
Whyte was disposed to look at it in the light of an attack of lovers'
jealousy, until Mrs. Whyte entered the room, looking very concerned,
and, taking her husband's arm, burst into tears.
"Don't give way like that, missus. Why, what's the matter?" said he,
tenderly.
"Oh, dad, dad, it's horrible. She has locked herself in her room, and is
crying bitterly, but she won't open the door. Who would have thought our
Amy would do such a thing. Oh, these horrid balls!"
"It's not the ball," said Reg, fiercely. "It's that scoundrel Wyckliffe
who is the cause of all this. I'll murder him."
"Reg, I am surprised at you talking like that," said Mrs. Whyte. "If Amy
wished to stay with him, she--"
"Prefers him to me, is that it?" put in Reg, rising, and pacing the
room, angrily.
"No, not that. I mean she is to blame."
"She's not to blame. If she had not met that fellow, there would have
been no trouble."
"Come, come," said Whyte, anxious to make peace. "Let's get to bed;
perhaps she will have forgotten all about it in the morning." And he led
his wife away.
Reg did not go to bed, but walked restlessly to and from the garden to
cool his heated brain and collect his thoughts. At last he entered his
room, and casually picked up a copy of _Truth_ to while away the time
until he felt inclined for sleep. His eye happened to light on a
paragraph drawing attention to the ruin of the prospects of a young
actress by a gentleman "well-known in Society." No names were mentioned,
but fuller details were promised. Had names been mentioned an amount of
sorrow, with its appalling consequences, would have been saved and this
story never have been written. At last Reg tumbled into bed, only to
toss about and dream of dreadful accidents to Amy, with which Wyck was
somehow connected, while he himself lay powerless to rescue her,
fighting fiercely against the invisible hands which kept his hands tied,
and his limbs stiff and helpless.