THE BROKEN SPELL
Biddy was in the act of handing round the tea when there came the sound
of a step outside, and an impatient hand thrust open the door.
"Hullo, Stumpy!" said a voice. "Are you here? What have you done with
Miss Bathurst? She's engaged to me for the next dance." Eustace entered
with the words, but stopped short on the threshold. "Hullo! You are here!
I thought you had given me the slip."
Dinah looked up at him with merry eyes. "So I have--practically. I am on
my way to bed."
"Oh, nonsense!" he said, with his easy imperiousness. "I can't spare you
yet. I must have one more dance just to soothe my nerves. I've been
dancing with a faultless automaton who didn't understand me in the least.
Now I want the real thing again."
"Have some tea!" said Scott.
"Thanks!" Sir Eustace sat down on the edge of the table, facing his
sister and Dinah. "You're not going to let me down, now are you?" he
said. "I'm counting on that dance, and I haven't enjoyed myself at all
since I saw you last. That girl is machine-made. There isn't a flaw in
her. She's been turned out of a mould; I'm certain of it. Miss Bathurst,
why are you laughing?"
"Because I'm pleased," said Dinah.
"Pleased? I thought you'd be sorry for me. You're going to take pity on
me anyway, I hope. The beautiful automaton has gone back to her band-box
for the night, so we can enjoy ourselves quite unhindered. Is that for
me? Thanks, Biddy! I'm needing refreshment badly."
"You would have preferred coffee," observed Isabel.
It was the first time she had spoken since his entrance. He gave her a
keen, intent look. "Oh, this'll do, thanks," he said. "It is all nectar
to-night. Why haven't you been down to the ballroom, Isabel? You would
have enjoyed it."
Her lips twisted a little. "I have been listening to the music upstairs,"
she said.
"You ought to have come down," he said imperiously. "I shall expect you
next time." His hand inadvertently touched the box on the table and he
looked sharply downwards. "Here, Biddy! Take this thing away!" he ordered
with a frown.
Isabel leaned swiftly forward. "Give it to me!" she said.
His hand closed upon it. "No. Let Biddy take it!"
"Let me!" said Dinah suddenly, and sprang to her feet.
She took it from him before he had time to protest, and gave it forthwith
into Isabel's outstretched hands.
Eustace took up his cup in heavy silence, and drained it.
Then he rose. "Come along, Miss Bathurst!"
But Dinah remained seated. "I am very sorry," she said. "But I can't."
"Oh, nonsense!" He smiled very suddenly and winningly upon her. "Surely
you won't disappoint me!"
She shook her head. Her eyes were wistful. "I'm disappointing myself
quite as much. But I mustn't. The Colonel has gone to bed with dyspepsia,
and Lady Grace and Rose have gone too by this time. I can't come down
again."
"Nonsense!" he said again. "You want to. You know you do. No one pays any
attention to Mrs. Grundy out here. She simply doesn't exist. Scott can
come and play propriety. He's staid enough to chaperon a whole girls'
school."
"Thanks, old chap," said Scott. "But I'm not coming down again, either."
Eustace looked over his head. "Then you must, Isabel. Come along! Just to
oblige Miss Bathurst! It won't hurt you to sit in a safe corner for one
dance."
Isabel looked up at him with a startled expression, as of one trapped.
"Oh, don't ask me!" she said. "I couldn't!"
"No, don't!" said Dinah. "It isn't, fair to bother anyone else on my
account! I'm dreadfully sorry to have to refuse. But--in any case--I
ought not to come."
"What of that?" said Eustace lightly. "Do you always do what you ought?
What a dull programme!"
Dinah flushed. "Dull but respectable," she said, with a touch of spirit.
He laughed. "But I'm not asking you to do anything very outrageous, and I
shouldn't ask it at all if I didn't know you wanted to do it. Besides,
you promised. It's generally considered the respectable thing to do to
keep one's promises."
That reached Dinah. She wavered perceptibly. "Lady Grace will be so
vexed," she murmured.
He snapped his fingers in careless disdain.
She turned appealingly to Scott. "I think I might go--just for one dance,
don't you?"
Scott's pale eyes met hers with steady comradeship. "I think I
shouldn't," he said.
Eustace turned as if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened
it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains
of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and
suddenly she was on her feet.
He held out his hand to her with a smile half-mocking, half-persuasive.
The music swung on with a subtle enchantment. Dinah uttered a little
quivering laugh, and went to him.
In another moment the door closed, and they stood alone in the passage.
"I knew you wanted to," said Eustace, smiling down into her eyes with the
arrogance of the conqueror.
Dinah was panting a little as one who had suffered a sudden strain. "Of
course I wanted to," she returned. "But that doesn't make it right."
He pressed her hand to his heart for a moment, and she caught again a
glimpse of that fire in his eyes that had so thrilled her. She could not
meet it. She stood in palpitating silence.
"Where is the use of fighting against fate?" he asked her softly. "A gift
of the gods is never offered twice."
She did not understand him, but her heart was beating wildly,
tumultuously, and an inner voice urged her to be gone.
She slipped her hand free. "Aren't we--wasting time?" she whispered.
He laughed again in that subtle, half-mocking note, but he met her wish
instantly. They went downstairs to the _salon_.
There were not so many dancers now. The de Vignes had evidently retired.
One rapid glance told Dinah this, and she dismissed them therewith from
her mind. The rhythm and lure of the music caught her. She slid into the
dance with delicious abandonment. The wonder and romance of it had got
into her veins. No stolen pleasure was ever more keenly enjoyed than was
that last perfect dance. Her very blood was a-fire with the strange,
intoxicating joy of life. She wanted to go on for ever.
But it ended at length. She came to earth after her rapturous flight, and
found herself standing with her partner in a curtained recess of the
ballroom from which a glass door led on to the verandah that ran round
the hotel.
"Just a glimpse of the moonlight on the mountains," he said, "before we
say good-night!"
She went with him without a moment's thought. She was as one caught in
the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed
through on to the verandah.
The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a
fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapphire. The
mountains stood in solemn grandeur, domes of white mystery. The great
vault of the sky was alight with stars, and a wonderful moon hung like a
silver shield almost in the zenith.
"How--beautiful!" breathed Dinah.
The air was crystal clear, cold but not piercing. The absolute stillness
held her spell-bound.
"It is like a dream-world," she whispered.
"In which you reign supreme," he murmured back.
She glanced at him with uncomprehending eyes. Her veins were still
throbbing with the ecstasy of the dance.
"Oh, how I wish I had wings!" she suddenly said. "To swim through that
glorious ether right above the mountain-tops as one swims through the
sea! Don't you think flying must be very like swimming?"
"With variations," said Eustace.
His eyes dwelt upon her. They were fierily blue in that great flood of
moonlight. His hand still rested upon her waist.
"But what a mistake to want the impossible!" he said, after a moment.
"I always do," said Dinah. "At least," she glanced up at him again, "I
always have--until to-night."
"And to-night?" he questioned, dropping his voice.
"Oh, I am quite happy to-night," she said, with a little laugh, "even
without the wings. If I hadn't thought of them, I should have nothing
left to wish for."
"I wish I could say the same," said Sir Eustace, with the faint mocking
smile at the corners of his lips.
"What can you want more?" asked Dinah innocently.
He leaned to her. "A big thing--a small thing! Would you give it to me,
my elf of the mountains, if I dared to tell you what it was?"
Her eyes fluttered and fell before the flaming ardour of his. "I--I don't
know," she faltered, in sudden confusion. "I expect so--if I could."
His arm slipped round her. "Would you?" he whispered. "Would you?"
She gave a little gasp, caught unawares like a butterfly on the wing. All
the magic of the night seemed suddenly to be concentrated upon her like
fairy batteries. Her first feeling was dismay, followed instantly by the
wonder if she could be dreaming. And then, as she felt the drawing of his
arm, something vehement, something almost fierce, awoke within her,
clamouring wildly for freedom.
It was a blind instinct, but she obeyed it without question. She had no
choice.
"Oh no!" she cried. "Oh no! I couldn't!" and wrested herself from him in
a panic.
He let her go, and she heard him laugh as she broke away. But she did not
wait for more. To linger was unthinkable. Urged by that imperative, inner
prompting she turned and fled, not pausing for a moment's thought.
The glass door closed behind her. She burst impetuously into the deserted
ballroom. And here, on the point of entering the small recess from which
she was escaping, she came suddenly face to face with Scott.
So headlong was her flight that she actually ran into him. He put out a
steadying hand.
"I was just coming to look for you," he said in his quiet, composed
fashion.
She stopped unwillingly. "Oh, were you? How kind! I--I think I ought to
go up now. It's getting late, isn't it? Good-night!"
He did not seek to detain her. She wondered with a burning sense of shame
what he could have thought of her wild rush. But she was too agitated to
attempt any excuse, too agitated to check her retreat. Without a backward
glance she hastened away like Cinderella overtaken by fate; the spell was
broken, the glamour gone.