XI

John went home thinking pitifully of Margery Byrne and vowing hotly that

he would sacrifice himself for her sake. In the hall he found a letter

from Miss Muriel Tarrant. The neat round writing on the envelope stirred

him deliciously where it stared up from the floor. Almost reverently he

picked it up and fingered it and turned it over and examined it with the

fond and foolish deliberation of a lover for whom custom has not staled

these little blisses. The letter was an invitation to a dance. The

Tarrants had just come home and they were taking a party to the Buxton

Galleries on Saturday. And they were very anxious for John to go. It was

clear, then, that they had declined to join the faction of Mrs. Vincent,

though they must have heard the story, numbers of stories, by this time.

And John, as he argued thus, was almost overwhelmed with pride and

tenderness and exultation. He felt then that he had known always that

Muriel was different from the malicious sheep who were her mother's

friends. And this letter, coming at this moment, seemed like some

glorious sign of approbation from Heaven, an acknowledgment and a

reward for the deed of sacrifice to which he had but just devoted

himself. It was an inspiration to go on with it--though it made the

sacrifice itself seem easy.

He took the letter to his bed and laid it on the table beside him. And

for a long time he pondered in the dark the old vague dreams of Muriel

and marriage which, since the coming of the letter, had presented

themselves with such startling clearness. He had not seen her for many

weeks, but this letter was like a first meeting; it was a revelation. He

knew she was not clever, perhaps not even very intelligent; but she was

young and lovely and kind; and she should be the simple companion of his

simple heart. He was very lonely in this dark house, very silent and

alone. He wanted some one who would bring voices and colour into his

home, would make it a glowing and intimate place, like Margery Byrne's.

Poor Margery! And Muriel would do this.

But he would have hard work to bring this about. He knew very little

what she thought of him. He would be very accomplished and winning at

this dance. Probably there would be four of them--Muriel and himself and

her young brother George and some flame of his. They would dance

together most of the evening, and he would dance with Muriel. And he

must not be awkward--slide about or tread on her toes. He was not "keen

on dancing," and he was not good at dancing. But he could "get round";

and Muriel would teach him the rest. She loved teaching people.

But the party was to be a larger affair than John had imagined it. There

were to be at least six, if the men could be found. And in the morning

Muriel Tarrant came herself to the Byrnes' house and asked if Stephen

would come. It was a bold suggestion, for she did not know him very

well, and she knew that he seldom danced, seldom indeed "went out" at

all in the evenings. But such boldness became a virtue in the post-war

code of decorum, and she was a bold person, Muriel Tarrant. This morning

she looked very fresh and alluring, with her fair hair creeping in

calculated abandon from a small blue hat and a cluster of tiny black

feathers fastened at the side of it--tiny feathers, but somehow

inexpressibly naughty. They wandered downwards over the little curls at

the side of her head and nestled delicately against her face.

Margery was yet in bed, and Stephen took his visitor out into the hot

garden, where little Joan was wheeling sedately a small pram and the

rabbits lay panting in dark corners. And first he said that he would not

go to the dance. He was busy and he did not love dancing; and anyhow

Margery could not go. But Muriel perched herself on the low wall over

the river, and leaned forward with her blue eyes on his, and a little

pout about her lips; and she said, "Oh, _do_, Mr. Byrne." And there was

a kind of personal appeal in her voice and her eagerness and her steady

smiling eyes that woke up his vanity and his admiration. He thought,

"She really thinks it is important that I should go; she likes me." And

then, "And I like her." And then he said that he would go. They talked a

little in the sun before she went, and when she was gone Stephen felt as

if some secret had passed between them. Also he wondered why he had

thought so little of her existence before. And Muriel went down The

Chase, smiling at some secret thought.

They dined hurriedly at Brierleys' that Saturday. Muriel and her brother

and Stephen and John, and two young sisters of the name of Atholl, to

whom George Tarrant owed an apparently impartial allegiance. They were

equally plump and unintelligent, and neither was exciting to the outward

eye, but it seemed that they danced well. But to young George this was

the grand criterion of fitness for the purpose of a dance. John's idea

of a dance--and Stephen's--was a social function at which you

encountered pleasant people with whom, because there was dancing, one

danced. But it was soon made clear to him that these were the withered

memories of an obsolete age. For this was the time of the Great Craze. A

dance now was no social affair; it was a semi-gladiatorial display to

which one went to perform a purely physical operation with those who

were physically most fitted to perform it. Dancing had passed out of the

"party" stage; it was no longer even a difficult, but agreeable and

universal pastime; it was practically a profession. It was entirely

impossible, except for the very highly gifted, even to approximate to

the correct standards of style and manner without spending considerable

sums of money on their own tuition. And when they had finished their

elaborate and laborious training, and were deemed worthy to take the

floor at the Buxton Galleries at all, they found that their new

efficiency was a thin and ephemeral growth. The steps and rhythms and

dances which they had but yesterday acquired, at how much trouble and

expense, passed today into the contemptible limbo of the unfashionable,

like the hats of last spring; and so the life of the devotee was one

long struggle to keep himself abreast of the latest invention of the

astute but commercially-minded professional teachers. "For ever climbing

up the climbing wave," for ever studying, yet for ever out-of-date, he

oscillated hopefully between the Buxton Galleries and his chosen priest;

and so swift and ruthless were the changes of fashion and the whims of

the priesthood, that in order to get your money's worth of the last

trick you had learned, it was necessary, during its brief life of

respectability, to dance at every available opportunity. You danced as

many nights a week as was physically or financially possible; you danced

on week-days, and you danced on Sundays; you began dancing in the

afternoon, and you danced during tea in the coffee-rooms of expensive

restaurants, whirling your precarious way through littered and abandoned

tea-tables; and at dinner-time you leapt up madly before the fish and

danced like variety _artistes_ in a highly polished arena before a crowd

of complete strangers eating their food; or, as if seized with an

uncontrollable craving for the dance, you flung out after the joint for

one wild gallop in an outer room, from which you returned, sweating and

dyspeptic, to the consumption of an iced pudding, before dashing forth

to the final orgy at a night-club, or a gallery, or the mansion of an

earl. But it was seldom that you danced at anybody's mansion. The days

of private and hospitable dances were practically dead. Nobody could

afford to give as many dances as the dancing cult required. Moreover, at

private dances there were old-fashioned conventions and hampering

politenesses to be observed. You might have to dance occasionally out of

mere courtesy with some person who was three weeks behind the times,

who could not do the Jimble or the Double-Jazz Glide, or might even have

an attachment for the degrading and obsolete Waltz. On the other hand,

you would not be allowed to dance the entire evening with "the one woman

in the room who can do the Straddle properly," and there was a prejudice

against positive indecency. So it was better from all points of view to

pay a few guineas and go to a gallery or a restaurant or a night-club

with a small number of selected women, dragooned by long practice into a

slavish harmony with the niceties of your particular style and favourite

steps. And after all, what with the dancing lessons, and the

dance-dinners, and the dance-teas, and the taxis to dances, and the

taxis away from dances, and the tickets for dances, and the

subscriptions to night-clubs, and the life-memberships of night-clubs

which perished after two years, you had so much capital invested in the

industry that you simply could not _afford_ to have a moment's pleasure

placed in jeopardy by deficiencies of technique in your guests. Away,

then, with mere Beauty and mere Charm and mere Intelligence and mere

Company! Bring out the Prize Mares and show us their steps and their

stamina, their powers of endurance and harmonious submission, before we

consent to appear with them in the public and costly arena.

A party selected on these lines, however suitable for the serious

business of the evening, could be infinitely wearisome for the purposes

of dinner. Stephen thought he had never beheld two young women so little

entertaining as the two Misses Atholl. All they talked of and all that

George Tarrant talked of was the dances they had been to, and were going

to, and could not go to, and the comparative values of various mutual

friends, considered solely as dancers. It was like the tedious "shop" of

the more fanatical golfers; and indeed at any moment Stephen expected to

hear that some brave or other had a handicap of three at the Buxton

Galleries, or had become stale from over-training, or ruined his form by

ordinary walking. Stephen (or Muriel) had taken care that they should be

sitting together, but though she was very lively and charming, and

though her talk was less restricted in range than the talk of the

Atholls, Stephen began to wish intensely that he had not come. And he

thought of Margery, and was sorry that he had left her alone in the

house to come and listen to this futile jabbering. She had approved

enthusiastically of his coming, for she thought that he went out too

little; but she had looked rather wistful, he thought, when he left. She

liked dancing herself.

To John, too, the talk at dinner and the personality (if any) of the

Misses Atholl was inexpressibly dull; and since he was as far away from

Muriel as it was possible for him to be, and since she scarcely spoke a

word to any one but Stephen, he had nothing to console him but a few

provocative glances and the hope of seeing more of her at the dance. And

even this hope was dimmed by the presence of Stephen and the

intimidating technicalities of the conversation. He did not understand

why Stephen had come, and he rather resented his coming. Wherever

Stephen was one of the company, he always felt himself closing up

socially like an awed anemone in the presence of a large fish. And

tonight in that dominating presence he could not see in himself the

brilliant and romantic figure which he had determined to be at this

party. It was far from being the kind of party he had expected.

The amazing language of young George and the Misses Atholl made it still

less likely that that figure would be achieved at the dance. What were

these "Rolls" and "Buzzes" and "Slides," he wondered. And how did one do

them? The art of dancing seemed to have acquired strange complexities

since he had last attempted it eighteen months ago. Then with a faint

pride he had mastered the Fox Trot and something they called a Boston.

They had seemed very daring and difficult then, but already it seemed

they were dead. At any rate they were never mentioned. John foresaw

some hideous embarrassments, and he too wished fervently that he had not

come.

But Muriel at least was enjoying herself. She was feeling unusually

mischievous and irresponsible. She twinkled mischief at John's glum

face, and she twinkled mischief into Stephen's eyes. Only they were

different kinds of mischief. She had long been fond of John "in a kind

of way"; she was still fond of him "in a kind of way." But he was a slow

and indefinite suitor, old John, and he was undeniably not exciting.

However, there was no one she liked better, and if he should ever bring

himself to the pitch of suggesting it, she had little doubt that she

would take him. His income would not be large, but it would be certain.

But it was slow work waiting, and this evening she had Stephen Byrne;

and Stephen Byrne was undeniably exciting. Not simply because he was a

great poet,--for though she liked "poitry" in a vague way, she did not

like any one poet or one piece of poetry much better than another--but

because he had made a _success_ of poetry, a worldly success. He had

made a name, he had even made money; he was a well-known man. And he was

handsome and young, and his hair was black, and that morning in the

garden he had admired her. She knew that. And she knew that she had

touched his vanity by her urgency and his senses by her charm, and

something naughty had stirred in her, and that too he had seen and

enjoyed with a sympathetic naughtiness. And she had thought to herself

that it would be an amusing thing to captivate this famous young man,

this married, respectable, delightful youth; it would be interesting to

see how powerful she could be. And at least she might waken John Egerton

into activity.

They went on to the dance in two taxis. John found himself on one of the

small seats with his back to the driver, with Stephen and Muriel

chattering aloofly together in the gloom of the larger seat. The small

seat in a taxi is, at the best of times, a position of moral and

strategic inferiority, and tonight John felt this keenly. He screwed his

head round uncomfortably in his sharp collar and pretended to be

profoundly interested in the wet and hurrying streets. But he heard

every word they said; and they said no word to him.

From the door of the galleries where the dancing was done, a confused

uproar overflowed into the passages, as if several men of powerful

physique were banging a number of pokers against a number of saucepans,

and blowing whistles, and occasional catcalls, and now and then beating

a drum and several sets of huge cymbals, and ceaselessly twanging at

innumerable banjos, and at the same time singing in a foreign language,

and shouting curses or exhortations or street-cries, or imitating

hunting-calls or the cry of the hyena, or uniting suddenly in the final

war-whoop of some pitiless Indian tribe. It was a really terrible noise.

It hit you like the breath of an explosion as you entered the room.

There was no distinguishable tune. It was simply an enormous noise. But

there was a kind of savage rhythm about it, which made John think

immediately of Indians and fierce men and the native camps which he had

visited at the Earl's Court Exhibition. And this was not surprising; for

the musicians included one genuine negro and three men with their faces

blacked; and the noise and the rhythm were the authentic music of a

negro village in South America; and the words which some genius had once

set to the noise were an exhortation to go to the place where the

negroes dwelt.

To judge by their movements, John thought, many of the dancers had in

fact been there, and carefully studied the best indigenous models. They

were doing some quite extraordinary things. No two couples were doing

quite the same thing for more than a few seconds; so that there was an

endless variety of extraordinary motions and extraordinary postures.

Some of them shuffled secretly along the edge of the room, their faces

tense, their shoulders swaying faintly like reeds in a light wind,

their progress almost imperceptible; they did not rotate, they did not

speak, but sometimes the tremor of a skirt or the slight stirring of a

patent leather shoe showed that they were indeed alive and in motion,

though that motion was as the motion of a glacier, not to be measured in

minutes or yards. And some, in a kind of fever, rushed hither and

thither among the thick crowd, avoiding disaster with marvellous

dexterity; and sometimes they revolved slowly and sometimes quickly, and

sometimes spun giddily round for a moment like gyroscopic tops. Then

they too would be seized with a kind of trance, or, it may be, with

sheer shortness of breath, and hung motionless for a little in the

centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled and flowed about them

like the leaves in autumn round a dead bird. And some did not revolve at

all, but charged straightly up and down; and some of these thrust their

loves for ever before them, as the Prussians thrust the villagers in the

face of the enemy, and some for ever navigated themselves backwards like

moving breakwaters to protect their darlings from the rough seas of

tangled women and precipitate men. Some of them kept themselves as

upright as possible, swaying gracefully like willows from the hips, and

some of them contorted themselves into hideous and angular shapes, now

leaning perilously forward till they were practically lying upon their

terrified partners, and now bending sideways as a man bends who has

water in one ear after bathing. All of them clutched each other in a

close and intimate manner, but some, as if by separation to intensify

the joy of their union, or perhaps to secure greater freedom for some

particularly spacious manoeuvre, would part suddenly in the middle of

the room and, clinging distantly with their hands, execute a number of

complicated side-steps in opposite directions, or aim a series of

vicious kicks at each other, after which they would reunite in a

passionate embrace, and gallop in a frenzy round the room, or fall into

a trance, or simply fall down; if they fell down they lay still for a

moment in the fearful expectation of death, as men lie who fall under a

horse; and then they would creep on hands and knees to the shore through

the mobile and indifferent crowd.

Watching them you could not tell what any one couple would do next. The

most placid and dignified among them might at any moment fling a leg out

behind them and almost kneel in mutual adoration, and then, as if

nothing unusual had happened, shuffle solemnly onward through the press;

or, as though some electric mechanism had been set in motion, they would

suddenly lift a foot sideways and stand on one leg, reminding the

observer irresistibly of a dog out for a walk; or, with the suggestion

of an acrobat nerving himself for the final effort of daring, the male

would plant himself firmly on both feet while his maiden laboriously

leapt a half-circle through the air about the tense figure of her swain.

It was marvellous with what unanimity these eccentricities were

performed. So marvellous, John thought, that it was impossible to think

of them as spontaneous, joyous expressions of art. He imagined the male

issuing his orders during the long minutes of shuffling motion,

carefully manoeuvring into position, sizing up like a general the

strategic situation, and then hoarsely whispering the final "Now!" And

after that they moved on with all the nonchalance of extreme

self-consciousness, thinking, no doubt, "It cost me a lot to learn

that--but it was worth it."

The look of their faces confirmed this view, for nearly all were set and

purposeful and strained, as men who have serious work in hand; not

soulful, not tense with emotion, but simply expressive of concentration.

With few exceptions there was nothing of the joy of life in those faces,

the rapture of music or of motion. They meant business. And this was the

only thing that could absolve many of them from the charge of public

indecency; for it was clear that their motions and the manner of their

embraces were not the expression of licence or affection so much as

matters of technique.

Upon this whirlpool John Egerton embarked with the gravest misgivings,

especially as he was conscious of a strange Miss Atholl clinging to his

person. Young George Tarrant had immediately plunged into the storm with

her sister, and his fair head was to be seen far off, gleaming and

motionless like a lighthouse above the tossing heads and undulant

shoulders. Stephen had secured Muriel Tarrant, and poor John was very

miserable. If he had been less shy, or more intimate with Miss Atholl,

he might have comforted himself with the comedy of it all. And if he had

been more ruthless he might have bent Miss Atholl to his will and

declined to attempt anything but his own primitive two-step. But he

became solemn and panic-stricken, and surrendered his hegemony to her,

suffering her to give him intricate advice in a language which was

meaningless to him, and to direct him with ineffectual tugs and pushes

which only made his bewilderment worse. The noise was deafening, the

atmosphere stifling, the floor incredibly slippery. The four black men

were now all shouting at once, and playing all their instruments at

once, working up to the inconceivable uproar of the finale, and all the

dancers began to dance with a last desperate fury and velocity. Bodies

buffeted John from behind, and while he was yet looking round in apology

or anger, other bodies buffeted him from the flank, and more bodies

buffeted his partner and pressed her against his reluctant frame. It was

like swimming in a choppy sea, where there is no time to recover from

the slap and buffets of one wave before the next one smites you.

Miss Atholl whispered, "Hold me tighter," and John, blushing faintly at

these unnatural advances, tightened a little his ineffectual grip. The

result of this was that he kicked her more often on the ankle and trod

more often on her toes. Close beside him a couple fell down with a crash

and a curse and the harsh tearing of satin. John glanced at them in

concern, but was swept swiftly onward with the tide. He was dimly aware

now that the black men were standing on their chairs bellowing, and

fancied the end must be near. And with this thought he found himself

surprisingly in a quiet backwater, a corner between two rows of chairs,

from which he determined never to issue till the Last Banjo should

indeed sound. And here he sidled and shuffled vaguely for a little,

hoping that he gave the impression of a man preparing himself for some

vast culminating feat, a sidestep, or a "buzz," or a double-Jazzspin, or

whatever these wonders might be.

Then the noise suddenly ceased; there was a burst of perfunctory

clapping, and the company became conscious of the sweat of their bodies.

John looked round longingly for Muriel.

But Muriel was happily chattering to Stephen Byrne in a deep sofa

surrounded by palms. Stephen, like John, had surveyed the new dancing

with dismay, but his dismay was more artistic than personal. He was as

much amused as disgusted, and he did not intend, for any woman, to make

himself ridiculous by attempting any of the more recent monstrosities.

But, unlike John, he had the natural spirit of dancing in his soul; so

that he was able to ignore the freakish stupidities of the scene, and

extract an artistic elemental pleasure of his own from the light and the

colour and excitement, from the barbaric rhythm of the noise and the

seductive contact of Muriel Tarrant. So he took her and swung her

defiantly round in an ordinary old-fashioned waltz; and she, because it

was the great Stephen Byrne, felt no shame at this sacrilege.

When they had come to the sofa, she talked for a little the idle

foolishness which is somehow inseparable from the intervals between

dances, and he thought, "I wonder whether she always talks like this. I

wonder if she reads my poems. I wonder if she likes them." He began to

wish that she would pay him a compliment about them, even an

unintelligent compliment. It might jar upon him intellectually, but,

coming from her, it would still be pleasing. For it is a mistake to

suppose that great artists are so remote from the weaknesses of other

men that they are not sometimes ready to have their vanity tickled by a

charming girl at the expense of their professional sensibilities.

But she only said, "It's a ripping band here. I hope you'll come here

again, Mr. Byrne." And he thought, "What a conversation!" How could one

live permanently with a conversation like this? But old John could!

But as she said it she looked him in the eyes very directly and

delightfully, and once again there was the sense of a secret passing

between them.

* * * * *

Then they went to look for John, and Muriel determined that she would be

very nice to him. The next dance was, nominally, a waltz, and that was a

rare event. John asked if he might waltz in the ancient fashion, and

though she was being conscientiously sweet and gracious to him, and

though she had made no murmur when Stephen had done as John would like

to do, some devil within her made her refuse. She said that he must do

the Hesitation Waltz as other people were doing. The chief point of this

seemed to be that you imitated the dog, not by spasms, but

consistently. Even the most expert practitioner failed to invest this

feat with elegance and dignity, and the remainder, poising themselves

pathetically with one leg in the air, as if waiting for the happy signal

when they might put it down, would have looked ridiculous if they had

not looked so sad. Stephen, revolving wearily with the younger Miss

Atholl, wished that the Medusa's head might be smuggled into the room

for the attitudes of this dance to be imperishably recorded in cold

stone. Then he caught sight of the unhappy John, and was smitten with an

amused sympathy. John's study of the habits of dogs had evidently been

superficial, and he did not greatly enjoy his first dance with his love.

He held her very reverently and loosely, though dimly aware that this

made things much more difficult, but he could not bring himself to seize

that soft and altogether sacred form in the kind of intimate clutch

which the other men affected--Stephen, he noticed, included. It was a

maddening complexity of emotion, that dance--the incredible awe and

rapture of holding his adored, however lightly, in his arms, the

intoxication of her nearness the fragrance of her dress, and the touch

of her hair upon his face--and all this ruined by the exasperating

futility of the actual dance, the vile necessity of thinking whether he

was in time with the music and in time with Muriel, and if he was going

to run into the couple ahead, and if there was room to reverse in that

corner, and whether he should cock his leg up farther, or not so far, or

not at all. He envied bitterly the easy accomplishment of the circling

youths about him, who, for all the earnestness of their expressions, had

each of them, no doubt, time to appreciate the fact that they held on

their arms some warm and lovely girl.

Yet Muriel was very kind and forbearing and instructive, and at the end

of it he did feel that he had made some progress, both with his

hesitating and his suit. They sat in the interval on the same sofa, and

Muriel was still gracious. She told him that he would pick it up very

quickly, that it was all knack, that it was all balance, that it was all

practice, that no practice was needed. And John believed everything and

was much excited and pleased. He thanked her for her advice, and vowed

that he would take lessons and become an expert. And Muriel thought, "He

will never be able to dance; could I live permanently with a man like

that?" She thought what a prim, funny "old boy" he was. But he was a

nice "old boy," and that rumour about the maid-servant was positively

ridiculous.

The next dance she had promised to Stephen. The four black men were

playing a wild and precipitate tune. A certain melody was

distinguishable, and it had less of the lunacies of extravagant

syncopation than most of their repertoire. But it was a wicked tune, a

hot, provocative, passionate tune, that fired a man with a kind of fever

of motion. Faster and faster, and louder and louder, the black men

played; and though it was impossible for the dancers to move much faster

because of the press, their entranced souls responded to the gathering

urgency of the music, and they clutched their partners more tightly, and

they were conscious no more of the sweat upon their bodies, of their

sore toes, or disordered dresses, they forgot for a moment the technical

details of the movements of their feet, and they were whirled helplessly

on in a savage crescendo of noise and motion and physical rapture

towards the final Elysium of licence to which this dance must surely

lead them.

Stephen Byrne felt the fever and enjoyed it. He enjoyed it equally as a

personal indulgence and as an artistic experience. He held Muriel very

close, and found himself dancing with an eager pleasure which surprised

him. Yet as he danced, he was noticing his own sensations and the faces

of the people about him, the intense faces of the men, the drugged

expressions of the women. He saw oldish men looking horribly young in

their animal excitement, and oldish women looking horrible in their

coquettishness. And he saw them all as literary material. He thought,

"This is good copy."

Muriel, he knew, was enjoying it too. Her eyes were half-closed, her

face, a little pale, had the aspect of absolute surrender which can be

seen in churches. But sometimes she opened her eyes wide and smiled at

Stephen. And this excited him very much, so that he watched for it; and

when she saw that she blushed. Then he was swept with a hot gust of

feeling, and he realized that he was dangerously attracted by this girl.

He thought of Margery and the late vows he had made, and he was ashamed.

But the mad dance went on, with ever-increasing fury, and the black men

returned with a vast tempestuous chord and a shattering crash of cymbals

to the original melody, and all those men and women braced themselves to

snatch the last moment of this intoxication. Those who were dancing with

bad partners or dull partners were filled with bitterness because they

were not getting the full measure of the dance; and those who held the

perfect partners in their arms foresaw with sorrow the near end of their

rapture, and began, if they had not already begun, to conceive for each

other a certain sentimental regard. Stephen thought no more of Margery,

but he thought tenderly of Muriel and the moment when the dance must

end. For when it ended all would be over; he might not hold her in his

arms any more, he might not enjoy her loveliness in any way, because he

was married, and she was dedicated to John. She was too good for John.

But because he was married he must stand aside and see her sacrificed to

John or to somebody like John. He must not interfere with that. But he

would like to interfere. He would like to kiss her at the end of the

dance.

The dance was finished at last, and while they sat together afterwards,

hot and exhausted, Muriel said suddenly, "What's all this about Mr.

Egerton--and--that maid of yours--? There are some horrid stories going

round--Mrs. Vincent--Mother said she wouldn't listen to any of them."

Stephen was silent for a little. Then he said, in a doubtful, deliberate

manner:

"Well, I've known John as long as anybody in The Chase, and I know he's

a jolly good fellow, but--but--It was an extraordinary affair, that,

altogether. I don't know what to make of it." He finished with a sigh of

perplexity.

Then he sat silent again, marvelling at himself, and Muriel said no

more.

John came up and stood awkwardly before them. He wanted to ask Muriel

for the next dance, but he was too shy to begin. His dress-suit was

ill-fitting and old, his hair ruffled, his tie crooked, and as she lay

back on the sofa Muriel could see a glimpse of shirt between the top of

his trousers and the bottom of the shrunken and dingy white waistcoat,

where any pronounced movement of his body caused a spasmodic but

definite hiatus. His shirt front had buckled into a wide dent. Of all

these things poor John was acutely conscious as he stood uncertainly

before the two.

Stephen said heartily, "Hallo, old John, you look a bit the worse for

wear. How did you get on that time?"

John stammered, "Not very well--I want Miss Tarrant to give me some

more--some more instruction." And he looked at Muriel, an appealing,

pathetic look. He wished very fiercely that Stephen was not there--so

easy and dashing, and certain of himself.

And Muriel had no smile for him. She glanced inquiringly at Stephen, and

said, with the hard face of a statue, "I'm sorry, I'm doing the next

with Mr. Byrne." And Stephen nodded.

She danced no more with John that night. Sometimes as he sat out

disconsolately with one of the Atholl women, she brushed him with her

skirt, or he saw her distantly among the crowd. And he looked now with a

new longing at the adorable poise of her head upon her shoulders, at the

sheen and texture of her hair, at the grace and lightness of her

movements, as she swam past with Stephen. He looked after her till she

was lost in the press, trying to catch her eye, hoping that she might

see him and smile at him. But if she saw him she never smiled. And when

he was sick with love and sadness, and hated the Atholls with a bitter

hatred, he left the building alone, and went home miserably by the

Underground.