Maurice Guest (48 page)

"You don't care for dancing?" she queried. And, when he had replied: "Well, say, now, Mr. Guest,—we are all dying to know—however have you gotten Louise Dufrayer along here this evening? It's the queerest thing out."

"Indeed?" said the young man drily.

"Well, maybe queer is not just the word. But, why, we all presumed she was perfectly inconsolable—thinking only of another world. That's so. And then you work a miracle, and out she pops, fit as can be."

"I persuaded her . . . for the sake of variety," mumbled Maurice.

Little Fauvre, the baritone, had come up; but Miss Jensen did not heed his meek reminder that this was their dance.

"That was excessively kind of you," said the big woman, and looked at Maurice with shrewd, good-natured eyes. "And no doubt, Louise is most grateful. She seems to be enjoying herself. Keep quiet, Fauvre, do, till I am ready.—But I don't like her dress. It's a lovely goods, and no mistake. But it ain't suitable for a little hop like this. It's too much."

"How Miss Dufrayer dresses is none of my business."

"Well, maybe not.—Now, Fauvre, come along"—she called it "Fover." "I reckon you think you've waited long enough."

Maurice, left to himself again, was astonished to hear Madeleine's voice in his ear. She had made her way to him alone.

"For goodness' sake, pull yourself together," she said cuttingly. "Every one in the hall can see what's the matter with you."

Before he could answer, she was claimed by her partner—one of the few Germans scattered through this Anglo-American gathering. "Is zat your brozzer?" Maurice heard him ask as they moved away. He watched them dancing together, and found it a ridiculous sight: round Madeleine, tall and angular, the short, stout man rotated fiercely. From time to time they stopped, to allow him to wipe his face.

Maurice contemplated escaping from the hall to some quiet room beyond. But as he was edging forward, he ran into Dove's arms, and that was the end of it. Dove, it seemed, had had his eye on him. The originator of the ball confessed that he was not having a particularly good time; he had everything to superintend—the dances, the musicians, the arrangements for supper. Besides this, there were at least a dozen too many ladies present; he believed some of the men had simply given their tickets away to girl-friends, and had let them come alone. So far, Dove had been forced to sacrifice himself entirely, and he was hot and impatient.

"Besides, I've routed half a dozen men out of the billiardroom, more than once," he complained irrelevantly, wiping the moisture from his brow. "But it's of no——Now just look at that!" he interrupted himself. "The 'cellist has had too much to drink already, and they're handing him more beer. Another glass, and he won't be able to play at all.—I say, you're not dancing. My dear fellow, it really won't do. You must help me with some of these women."

Taking Maurice by the arm, he steered him to a corner of the hall where sat two little provincial English sisters, looking hopeless and forlorn. Who had invited them, it was impossible to say; but no one wished to dance with them. They were dressed exactly alike, were alike in face, too—as like as two nuts, thought Maurice, as he bowed to them. Their hair was of a nutty brown, their eyes were brown, and they wore brown d resses. He led them out to dance, one after the other, and they were overwhelmingly grateful to him. He could hardly tell them apart; but that did not matter; for, when he took one back to her seat, the other sat waiting for her turn.

In dancing, he was thrown together with more of his friends, and he was not slow to catch the looks—cynical, contemptuous, amused—that were directed at him. Some were disposed to wink, and to call him a sly dog; others found food for malicious gossip in the way Louise had deserted him; and, when he met Miss Martin in a quadrille, she snubbed his advances with a definiteness that left no room for doubt.

Round dances succeeded to square dances; the musicians' playing grew more mechanical; flowers drooped, and dresses were crushed. An Englishman or two ran about complaining of the ventilation. As often as Maurice saw Louise, she was with Herries. At first, she had at least made a feint of dancing with other people; now she openly showed her preference. Always this dapper little man, with the violets and the simpering smile.

They were the two best dancers in the hall. Louise, in particular, gave herself up to the rhythm of the music with an abandon not often to be seen in a ball-room. Something of the professional about it, said Maurice to himself as he watched her; and, in his own estimation, this was the hardest thought he had yet had of her.

At supper, he sat between the two little sisters, whose birdlike chatter acted upon him as a reiterated noise acts on the nerves of one who is trying to sleep. He could hardly bring himself to answer civilly. At the further end of the table, on the same side as he, sat Louise. She was with those who had been her partners during the evening. They were drinking champagne, and were very lively. Maurice could not see her face; but her loud, excited laugh jarred on his ears.

Afterwards, the same round was to begin afresh, except that the sisters had generously introduced him to a friend. But when the first dance was over, Maurice abruptly excused himself to his surprised partner, and made his way out of the hall.

At the disordered supper-table, a few people still lingered; and deserters were again knocking balls about the green cloth of the billiard-table. Maurice went past them, and up a flight of stairs that led to a gallery overlooking the hall. This gallery was in semidarkness. At the back of it, chairs were piled one on top of the other; but the two front rows had been left standing, from the last concert held in the building, and here, two or three couples were sitting out the dance. He went into the extreme corner, where it was darkest.

At last he was alone. He no longer needed to dance with girls he did not care a jot for, or to keep up appearances. He was free to be as wretched as he chose, and he availed himself unreservedly of the chance. It was not only the personal slight Louise had put upon him throughout the evening, making use of him, as it were, to the very door, and then throwing him off: but that she could be attracted by a mere waxen prettiness, and well-fitting clothes—for the first time, distrust of her was added to his hurt amazement.

He had not been in his hiding-place for more than a very few minutes, when the door he had entered by reopened, and a couple came down the steps to the corner where he was sitting.

"Oh, there's some one there!" cried Louise at the sight of the dark figure. "Maurice! Is it you? What are you doing here?"

"Sssh!" said Herries warningly, afraid lest her clear voice should carry too far.

"Yes. It's me," said Maurice stiffly, and rose. "But I'm going. I shan't disturb you."

"Disturb?" she said, and laughed a little. "Nonsense! Of course not." From her position on Herries's arm, she looked down at him, uncertain how to proceed. Then she laughed again. "But how fortunate that I found you! The next is our dance, isn't it?"—-she pretended to examine her programme. "It will begin in a minute. I think I'll wait here."

"The next may be, but not the next again, remember," said Herries, before he allowed her to withdraw her arm. Louise nodded and laughed. "AUF WIEDERSEHEN!"

But after the door had dosed behind Herries, she remained standing, a step higher than Maurice, tipping her face with her handkerchief.

When she descended the step, and was on a level with him, he could see how her eyes glittered.

"Was that lie necessary?—for me?"

"What's the matter, Maurice? Why are you like this? Why have you not asked me to dance?"

He was unpleasantly worked on by her free use of his name.

"I, you? Have I had a chance?"

"Wasn't it for you to make the chance? Or did you expect me to come to you: Mr. Guest, will you do me the honour of dancing with me?—Oh, please, don't be cross. Don't spoil my pleasure—for this one night at least."

But she laughed again as she spoke, as though she did not fear his power to do so, and laid her hand on his arm: and, at her touch, he seemed to feel through sleeve and glove, the superabundance of vitality that was throbbing in her this evening. She was unable to be still for a moment; in the delicate pallor of her face, her eyes burned, black as jet.

"Are you really enjoying yourself so much? What CAN you find in it all?"

"Come—come down and dance. Listen!—can you resist that music? Quick, let us go down."

"I dance badly. I'm not Herries."

"But I can suit my step to anyone's. Won't you dance with me?—when I ask you?"

She had been leaning forward, looking over the balustrade at the couples arranging themselves below. Now she turned, and put her arm through his.

They went down the stairs, into the hall. Close beside the door at which they entered, they began to dance.

In all these months, Maurice had scarcely touched her hand. Now convention required that he should take her in his arms: he had complete control over her, could draw her closer, or put her further away, as he chose. For the first round or two, this was enough to occupy him entirely: the proximity of the lithe body, the nearness of the dark head, the firm, warm resistance that her back offered to his hand.

They were dancing to the music of the WIENER BLUT, most melancholy gay of waltzes, in which the long, legato, upward sweep of the violins says as plainly as in words that all is vanity. But with the passing of the players to the second theme, the melody made a more direct appeal: there was a passionate unrest in it, which disquieted all who heard if. The dancers, with flushed cheeks and fixed eyes, responded instinctively to its challenge: the lapidary swing with which they followed the rhythm became less circumspect; and a desire to dance till they could dance no more, took possession of those who were fanatic. No one yielded to the impulse more readily than Louise; she was quite carried away. Maurice felt the change in her; an uneasiness seized him, and increased with every turn. She had all but closed her eyes; her hair brushed his shoulder; she answered to the lightest pressure of his arm. Even her face looked strange to him: its expression, its individuality, all that made it hers, was as if wiped out. Involuntarily he straightened himself, and his own movements grew stiffer, in his effort to impart to her some of his own restraint. But it was useless. And, as they turned and turned, to the maddening music, cold spots broke out on his forehead: in this manner she had danced with all her previous partners, and would dance with those to come. Such a pang of jealousy shot through him at the thought that, without knowing what he was doing, he pulled her sharply to him. And she yielded to the tightened embrace as a matter of course.

With a jerk he stopped dancing and loosened his hold of her.

She stood and blinked at lights and people: she had been far away, in a world of melody and motion, and could not come back to herself all at once. Wonderingly she looked at Maurice; for the music was going on, and no one else had left off dancing; and, with the same of comprehension, but still too dazed to resist, she followed him up the stairs.

"It's easy to see you don't care for dancing," she said, when they were back in the corner of the gallery. Her breath came unsteadily, and again she touched her face with the small, scented handkerchief.

"No. Not dancing like that," he answered rudely. But now again, as so often before, directly it was put into words, his feeling seemed strained and puritanic.

Louise leaned forward in her seat to look into his face.

"Like what?—what do you mean? Oh, you foolish boy, what is the matter with you to-night? You will tell me next I can't dance."

"You dance only too well."

"But you would rather I was a wooden doll—is that it How is one to please you? First you are vexed with me because YOU did not ask ME to dance; and when I send my partner away, on your account, you won't finish one dance with me but exact that I shall sit here, in a dark corner, and let that glorious music go by. I don't know what to make of you." But her attention had already wandered to the dancers below. "Look at them!—Oh, it makes me envious! No one else has dreamt of stopping yet. For no matter how tired you are beforehand, when you dance you don't feel it, and as long as the music goes on, you must go on, too, though it lasted all night.—Oh, how often I have longed for a night like this! And then I've never met a better dancer than Mr. Herries."

"And for the sake of his dancing, you can forget what a puppy he is?"

"Puppy?" At the warmth of his interruption, she laughed, the low, indolent laugh, by means of which she seemed determined, on this night, to keep anything from touching her too nearly. "How crude you men are! Because he is handsome and dances well, you reason that he must necessarily be a simpleton."

"Handsome? Yes—if a tailor's dummy is handsome."

But Louise only laughed again, like one over whom words had no power. "If he were the veriest scarecrow, I would forgive him—for the sake of his dancing."

She leant forward, letting her gloved arms lie along her knees; and above the jet-trimmed line of her bodice, he saw her white chest rise and fall. At a slight sound behind, she turned and looked expectantly at the door.

"No, not yet," said the young man at her side. "Besides, even if it were, this is my dance, remember. You said so yourself."

"You are rude to-night, Maurice—and LANGWEILIG." She averted her face, and tapped her foot. But the content that lapped her made it impossible for her to take anything earnestly amiss, and even that others should show displeasure jarred on her like a false note.

"Don't be angry. To-morrow it will all be different again. Let me have just this one night of pleasure—let me enjoy myself in my own way."

"To hear you talk, one would think I had no wish but to spoil your pleasure."

"Oh, I didn't mean that. You misunderstand everything."

"What I say or think has surely no weight with you?"

She gave up the attempt to pacify him, and leaning back in her chair, stifled a yawn. Then with an exclamation of: "How hot it is up here!" she peeled off her gloves. With her freed hands, she tidied her hair, drawing out and thrusting in again the silver dagger that held the coil together. Then she let her bare arms fall on her lap, where they lay in strong outline against the black of her dress. One was almost directly under Maurice's eyes; even by the poor light, he could see the mark left on the inside of the wrist, by the buttons of the glove. It was a generously formed arm, but so long that it looked slender, and its firm white roundness was flawless from wrist to shoulder. He shut his eyes, but he could see it through his eyelids. Sitting beside her like this, in the semidarkness, morbidly aware of the perfume of her hair and dress, he suddenly forgot that he had been rude, and she indifferent. He was conscious only of the wish to drive it home to her, how unhappy she was making him.