During the days which followed Prudence strove continually to overcome
her prejudices and adapt herself to Mrs Morgan's ways. She tried, too,
to blind herself to what she now realised for an unalterable fact, that
her engagement was a mistake. She did not love Edward Morgan. She did
not like his mother, nor his home, nor the life they led. Mrs Henry's
humorously sarcastic criticisms of the Morningside establishment did not
annoy her. She was often amused by them, and allowed Mrs Henry to see
it. Afterwards, removed from Mrs Henry's influence, her conscience
rebuked her for disloyalty.
She liked Mrs Henry on account of her brightness, and spent more time
with her than old Mrs Morgan approved of. Mrs Henry kept open house
for her bachelor friends, of whom she had a number, and she took a
malicious pleasure in getting Prudence to help in the business of
entertaining.
"You'll meet these men at my dance," she said. "I want you to know them
first; it makes it so much more agreeable."
Prudence thought so too. She failed to understand old Mrs Morgan's
objection. It was absurd to suppose that she must avoid all other male
society on account of her engagement.
These brief lapses into an almost Bohemian gaiety under Mrs Henry's
chaperonage, made the Morningside household more noticeably dull. The
evenings were particularly dreary. Mrs Morgan insisted upon playing
patience after dinner, three-handed to include Prudence, and
necessitating the use of three packs of cards which made for confusion
in dealing. Prudence was dense in learning the game, and would have
preferred to sit out, but was not allowed to; it was imperative that she
should share in the amusement. It did not amuse her; and the
concentration necessary in following the play made conversation
impossible.
"Edward and I play every night," Mrs Morgan explained. "When he is
absent I play a single-handed patience. But that isn't so interesting.
Now when he has to leave home you will be able to play with me. That
will cheer us during his absences, and will be nicer for me."
Prudence began to feel very much as a fish must when caught in a net.
The desire to escape was imperative; but the net tightened hourly; there
appeared no weak places in it. And Edward Morgan himself was so
amazingly kind, and equally amazingly obtuse. He appeared entirely
unaware of the vain longing for escape which dominated Prudence's mind,
and made her increasingly restless because of that gradual closing of
the net which made retreat day by day more seemingly impossible.
Old Mrs Morgan gave a dinner party for the purpose of introducing
Prudence formally as her son's betrothed wife to his and her immediate
friends. Prudence was obliged to stand beside her with Edward and
receive these guests as they arrived, and listen to their
congratulations and utter little stereotyped phrases in acknowledgment
of their good wishes.
There was no way out of the muddle that she could see. She had sealed
and ratified her engagement by this visit to her fiance's home.
The dinner party produced a curious state of reaction. Apathetic
resignation to the inevitable followed upon this amazingly dull
ceremony. She must go through with what she had undertaken and make the
best of the bargain. The hope of keeping a separate establishment from
Mrs Morgan was as forlorn as the hope of escape had been. Neither
mother nor son, she knew, would suffer the arrangement. They would wear
down her opposition with the firm kindliness with which those in
authority overrule the undisciplined complainings of youth. None the
less, she felt that the imposition of a mother-in-law was unfair. Had
Mr Morgan raised this condition at the time of his proposal she would
not have agreed to it.
The night of Mrs Henry's dance was to witness another reaction.
Prudence's mood varied so continually during the brief visit to Mr
Morgan's home that it might be said to shift like the compass with each
fresh breath of criticism that greeted the intelligence of her
engagement. She was painfully sensitive on the subject.
She had looked forward to this dance, the success of which in regard to
partners was secured in advance, with much pleasure. It was a new
experience for her. She dressed that evening with unusual care, and was
conscious on surveying the finished result in the glass of looking her
best. When she went downstairs old Mrs Morgan's dim eyes noticed only
that she appeared extraordinarily young and immature; there was a
suggestion of the ingenue in the fresh girlish prettiness, emphasised by
her white dress and the childlike expression in the wide blue eyes.
At sight of her, flushed and happy, and wearing his pearls about her
throat, Edward Morgan was moved to an infinitely tender admiration. The
thought of the appraising eyes of other men resting upon her, of her
being held in familiar closeness by the partners who would claim the
privilege of dancing with her, gave him a queer stab of jealousy. He
would have preferred that she should dance only with himself.
"You look like a bride," he said, and bent over her and kissed her lips.
Both speech and manner disconcerted Prudence. Her glance fell, and the
flush in her cheeks deepened.
"I'm glad you think I look nice," she said.
He put her into the motor, and sat beside her, a silent abstracted
figure, enveloped in a heavy fur-lined coat. Concern for the thinness
of her attire and fear of draughts occupied him during the brief drive.
Prudence was relieved when they reached the house and she was free from
his fussy guardianship.
He was waiting for her when she emerged from the cloak-room, and he
tucked her hand under his arm with an air of conscious proprietorship
and led her through an admiring group of men to where the hostess stood
with her husband receiving their guests.
"How sweet you look. Prudence!" Mrs Henry said.
"How do? Awfully glad to see you," murmured Mr Henry, repeating his
formula parrotwise to each arrival.
Edward Morgan passed gravely on into the ball-room with his fiancee. He
felt nervous and out of his element. Functions of this description
always bored him; he possessed no small talk, and dancing seemed to him
a foolish pastime. Nevertheless he claimed two dances from Prudence,
whose programme filled rapidly; and, having danced the first dance with
her, retired to the outskirts, and leaned against the doorpost, watching
the moving scene with eyes that looked with jealous insistence for
Prudence's figure among the gay throng of dancers. Mrs Henry, who
found time among her distractions to observe him, drew her husband's
attention to the lounging figure, with the whispered injunction:
"For goodness' sake take him into the card-room! He is making himself
ridiculous."
But Mr Morgan refused to be beguiled into the card-room. He maintained
a determined stand near the door; and Prudence, whenever she left the
room with her partner in search of rest at the finish of a dance, was
conscious of his hungry watchfulness and the look of grave
dissatisfaction in his eyes. She wished that he would not watch her; it
was embarrassing.
"He doesn't look much like the hero of the evening," one unconscious
partner remarked to her as he steered her carefully through the press of
people. "I wonder which is the lucky lady?--Some one with her eyes wide
to the main chance, I imagine. I've been amusing myself with trying to
pick her out. She is not conspicuous through attentiveness to him,
anyhow. Do you know her?"
"Yes," Prudence admitted, with face aflame.
"Oh, I say! Point her out to me, will you? I am a new-comer, and out
of the know."
"No; I don't think I will."
"That's the reproof courteous," he returned, slightly nettled. "You
consider my remarks in bad taste."
"I think them indiscreet," she answered. "You wouldn't feel very happy
for instance if I laid claim to the honour."
It never occurred to him to treat this speech seriously. He laughed as
though it were a huge joke.
"I'm not such a fool as I look," he said. "It was because I knew it was
safe that I spoke so unguardedly to you."
Later on in the evening he had cause to remember his indiscretion and to
regret it. He noticed her with Edward Morgan, and observed with
amazement the intimacy of the terms that held between them. It flashed
into his mind with disconcerting conviction that what he had believed to
be a joke was no jest after all. He had seen Mr Morgan speak to no one
else, dance with no other partner. He pushed his inquiries further, and
learned to his ever-increasing discomfiture that it was to Mr Morgan's
fiancee he had made his unguarded remarks.