Moresby did "sit up" when Mr Musgrave took the floor with Peggy.
His conduct in doing so was all the more remarkable inasmuch as he had
not partnered anyone else during the evening.
Miss Simpson, seated against the wall, neglected save by the vicar, who
sought to entertain her conversationally since he did not dance, saw him
with amazed indignation take his place with Peggy in one of the sets on
the floor. She could not discredit her own senses or she would have
done so, but she was firmly convinced that the reason for his being
there was governed less by inclination than by the designs of his
partner, in which surmise she was not wholly incorrect. John Musgrave
would assuredly never have faced such an ordeal but for the persuasive
witchery of a certain fascinating dimple at the corner of a pretty
mouth. He was as hopelessly out of his element as a damaged war-vessel
in dry dock. Indeed, if one could imagine a war-vessel competing in a
regatta against a number of racing yachts, one would have some idea of
the utter incongruity of Mr John Musgrave forming one of the
double-sided square dance, and going bewilderedly and lumberingly
through the intricate mazes of the different figures, guided with
unflagging watchfulness by his attentive partner.
Fair hands reached out for his direction, bright eyes watched his
hesitation good-naturedly, and their owners obligingly pulled and pushed
and guided him to his positions, entering with such zest into the
business of keeping him to time that it could not be said he spoilt
their pleasure in the dance, however little enjoyment he derived from it
himself. Also, it was the one set in the room that was danced with
punctilious observance of the regular figures; to have taken the
liberties which modern interpretation encourages with the time-honoured
dance would have been unthinkable with Mr Musgrave's serious presence,
his courtly bows, his painstaking and conscientious performance
dominating the set. If the other men found it slow they resigned
themselves to the inevitable; their partners at least appeared very well
amused.
"You see," Mr Musgrave said to Peggy, his breathing laboured, as he
paused beside her at the finish of the grand chain, "I have forgotten
how to dance."
"You dance beautifully," Peggy assured him, smiling up into his serious
face. "The different figures are a little puzzling to remember. I am
enjoying this immensely."
"Are you?" he said, in some surprise. "It is very kind of you to say
so."
A regard for truth prevented Mr Musgrave from echoing her sentiments:
to sacrifice sincerity in an effort to be courteous was not Mr
Musgrave's way; but the knowledge that he was giving her pleasure atoned
in a measure for his own lack of enjoyment. That his actions were
exciting comment, that heads were turned to watch him, that those in the
room who were not dancing were more interested in himself than in the
other dancers, was not remarked by him. Mr Musgrave was sufficiently
modest to remain unconscious of the attention he received. The dance
was to him an ordeal of the utmost gravity, because of his stupidity and
his fear of spoiling others' pleasure in it; it was not, however, a
humiliating ordeal, as it might have been to a vainer man. In his
absorbed attention he missed the smiles and the glances and the
whispered comments; missed Miss Simpson's flushed displeasure, and the
vicar's amazed and smiling observation of his old friend's surprising
energy; missed, too, his sister's bright glance of quickened interest,
and his brother-in-law's amused grin.
"Coelebs?" murmured the vicar under his breath, and caught Belle's eye
and smiled at her.
Later he made his way to her, when the room cleared of the dancers and
Peggy and her partner disappeared with the stream drifting towards the
hall and the conservatory, and other convenient places fitted up for
sitting out. Their eyes met in a glance of sympathetic understanding;
then Belle linked a hand within his arm and suggested a retreat into the
conservatory.
"Is your faith in the power of your sex increasing at all?" he asked,
as, having led her to a secluded corner, he seated himself near her, and
leaned back in a low chair with an air of thorough enjoyment.
"Ah!" she said, her face turned towards his, amused and retrospective.
"You remember that conversation."
"You did not believe, when you challenged Mrs Chadwick, that she would
succeed to the extent we have witnessed to-night," he said.
Belle became suddenly grave.
"Would you ascribe the success altogether to Mrs Chadwick?" she asked.
"Well, perhaps not," he allowed. "It is a vicarious triumph. But the
success is unquestionable. I experienced in watching John a return of
my own youth."
"I wish," Belle remarked with some irrelevance, "that she was a little
older."
"Why?" asked the vicar, divining her reason even while putting the
question. The wish found an echo in his own thoughts, and had its
origin in the same grave doubt.
"I don't think a girl like Peggy will fall in love with John," she said.
"The mere fact that John danced with her does not prove that he is in
any immediate danger of falling in love with her," he returned. "I
don't suppose such an idea ever entered his head."
Belle laughed.
"I don't suppose it did," she agreed. "But I think she has the power to
inspire the emotion in him. It would be regrettable if she succeeded in
doing that without intending it."
"It would," he allowed, and was silent for a space, recognising the
inability of John's friends to safeguard him against the danger if Miss
Peggy Annersley chose to work in opposition to them. "She seems," he
suggested hopefully, "to be quite kind and sincere."
"She is an incorrigible little flirt," Belle replied, smiling at his
rather obvious attempt to reassure her. "I know her a good deal better
than you do."
"All good women, I understand," he returned, recalling his wife's
remarks on the same subject, "flirt, given the opportunity. Since you
mention the propensity in connection with her, I have reason to believe
she flirts with Robert. He has a poor opinion of her courage and a
great idea of her amiability."
"I can forgive her for flirting with Robert," said Belle; "he is such a
quaint old dear. But... John!"
"I refuse," said the vicar with gentle firmness, "to entertain any
unworthy thought of her in that connection. She has probably succeeded
in discovering in John what you and I have failed in discovering--the
vein of youthfulness he has concealed so successfully all these years.
Forty is the prime of life. It will not surprise me in the least if
John proves himself to be more youthful than Miss Annersley."
"She is only twenty-eight," said Belle.
"John is younger than that in experience," he replied. "I am beginning
to believe that at heart he is still a boy. No man who was not a boy at
heart could have concentrated so much energy and earnest endeavour upon
an exercise at once unfamiliar and distasteful. A boy will do what he
dislikes doing if he recognises that the doing is expected of him; a man
studies in preference his inclination. You cannot urge that John's
inclination tends, towards dancing."
"No," she answered. "But I can dispute your point, because plainly
John's inclination tends towards pleasing Peggy."
"Well, yes," the vicar conceded. "I begin to believe you are right."
If he entertained the smallest doubt on that head, the doubt would have
been dispelled could he have looked at the moment upon the picture of
Mr Musgrave seated with his late partner in a retired spot, screened
from the curious by tall palms and other pot-plants, to which retreat
Peggy had led him, as she led only her favoured partners, at the finish
of the dance. Mr Musgrave sat forward in his seat, fingering one of
the blush roses which had fallen from Peggy's dress when she left the
ballroom. A clumsy movement of his own towards the finish of the dance
had been responsible for the damage, as he was well aware. He had
picked up the rose when it fell, and he was now smoothing and touching
its petals as he held it lightly between his fingers, as once he had
smoothed and touched, and idly played with and destroyed, a glove which
she had dropped.
"I fear," he said, "I am in fault for the detachment of this. You will
begin to think me a very clumsy person."
"Those little accidents happen so often when one is dancing," she
replied. "It is of no consequence."
"It could, perhaps," he suggested, "be sewn on again."
"I don't think it is worth bothering about," she answered. "Besides, it
is broken off at the head. Never mind the rose; it isn't a real one. I
hope you weren't horribly bored at dancing with me? I believe you only
danced because--"
She paused. Mr Musgrave, still fingering the silken petals of the
rose, looked up inquiringly.
"Why do you think I danced?" he asked.
"Because I asked you to," she answered, smiling.
He smiled too.
"No," he contradicted. "The idea certainly arose from your suggestion.
I doubt whether I should have the courage to inflict myself on anyone as
a dance partner without that encouragement. But I had another reason."
"Tell me," she said softly, and looked at him with so demure an
expression, and then looked away again even more demurely, so that had
the vicar chanced upon this tableau also he would assuredly have applied
to her the term he had once made use of to his wife in speaking of her;
he would have called her a little baggage. But the vicar was not there
to see, and John Musgrave rather liked the demure expression. He had an
altogether different term for it, which was "womanly."
"If it interests you to know," he said, "I had in remembrance the
occasion when I declined to oblige you in the matter of the tableaux. I
did not desire to appear ungracious a second time."
"Then," said Peggy, in a low voice, and still without looking at him,
"you danced to please me."
"You have stated my reason correctly this time," John Musgrave answered
quietly. "I wanted to please you."
He rose as the sound of the music broke upon their ears, and offered her
his arm.
"And now I am going to please myself," he said, "and watch you dancing
this."
When he led her back to the ballroom and delivered her to her partner he
became aware as he stood for a moment alone at the entrance to the
crowded room that he still held the silken rose in his hand. He looked
at it in some perplexity. Mr Musgrave was a man of tidy habits; to
drop the rose upon the floor was not a tidy habit; it would, moreover,
be in the way, and it would certainly get crushed. He slipped it
instead into his pocket. Clearly in the circumstances that was the best
thing to do with it. The present difficulty of the disposal of the rose
being thus overcome, Mr Musgrave dismissed from his mind the
embarrassment of its further disposal and turned his attention to the
agreeable occupation of observing the graceful evolutions of the various
couples on the floor; and if his eyes followed one figure more
particularly, other eyes were doing the same, so that it could not be
said of him that he was in any way peculiar in his preference for
watching the prettiest and most graceful dancer in the room.