The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin.
She knew how much more important it seemed to her than it really
was. If she had been six years old she might have felt the same
kind of uncertain thrills and tremulous wonders. She hid herself
behind the window curtains in her room that she might see the
men putting up the crimson and white awning from the door to the
carriage step. The roll of red carpet they took from their van had
a magic air. The ringing of the door bell which meant that things
were being delivered, the extra moving about of servants, the
florists' men who went into the drawing-rooms and brought flowers
and big tropical plants to re-arrange the conservatory and fill
corners which were not always decorated--each and every one of
them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had belonged in
her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she would
have felt by this time no such elation. But she had only known of
the existence of such festivities as children's parties because once
a juvenile ball had been given in a house opposite her mother's
and she had crouched in an almost delirious little heap by the
nursery window watching carriages drive up and deposit fluffy pink
and white and blue children upon the strip of red carpet, and had
seen them led or running into the house. She had caught sounds
of strains of music and had shivered with rapture--but Oh! what
worlds away from her the party had been.
She found her way into the drawing-rooms which were not usually thrown
open. They were lofty and stately and seemed to her immense. There
were splendid crystal-dropping chandeliers and side lights which
she thought looked as if they would hold a thousand wax candles.
There was a delightfully embowered corner for the musicians. It
was all spacious and wonderful in its beautiful completeness--its
preparedness for pleasure. She realized that all of it had always
been waiting to be used for the happiness of people who knew
each other and were young and ready for delight. When the young
Lothwells had been children they had had dances and frolicking
games with other children in the huge rooms and had kicked up
their young heels on the polished floors at Christmas parties and
on birthdays. How wonderful it must have been. But they had not
known it was wonderful.
As Dowie dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back
to her an intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as
they smiled. The soft silk of her hair looked like the night and
the small rings on the back of her very slim white neck were things
to ensnare the eye and hold it helpless.
"You look your best, my dear," Dowie said as she clasped her little
necklace. "And it is a good best." Dowie was feeling tremulous
herself though she could not have explained why. She thought that
perhaps it was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have
been with her.
Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given.
"I'm going to run down the staircase," she said. "If I let myself
walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might
seem to CREEP into the drawing-room. I mustn't creep in. I must
walk in as if I had been to parties all my life."
She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird
flying, but she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the
drawing-room door to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still
when she entered the room she moved as she should and held her head
poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess--who herself
looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way--gave her a
pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate.
"What a perfect little frock!" she said. "You are delightfully
pretty in it."
"Is it quite right?" said Robin. "Mademoiselle chose it for me."
"It is quite right. 'Frightfully right,' George would say. George
will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson--Lord Halwyn you
know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are
'frightfully' something or other during the evening. Kathryn will
say things are 'deevy' or 'exquig'. I mention it because you may
not know that she means 'exquisite' and 'divine.' Don't let it
frighten you if you don't quite understand their language. They
are dear handsome things sweeping along in the rush of their bit
of century. I don't let it frighten me that their world seems to
me an entirely new planet."
Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had
felt years ago when she had said to Dowie. "I want to kiss you,
Dowie." Her eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she
so well understood the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew
her within its own circle with the light humour of its "I don't
let them frighten ME."
"You are kind--kind to me," she said. "And I am grateful--GRATEFUL."
The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to
drift into the brilliant big room--singly or in pairs of brother
and sister--filled her with innocent delight. They were so well
built and gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so
perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate
frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and
added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite
wisps of silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of
nearly twenty--aided by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted
nose. A girl in scarlet tulle was like a child out of a nursery
ready to dance about a Christmas tree. Everyone seemed so young
and so suggested supple dancing, perhaps because dancing was going
on everywhere and all the world whether fashionable or unfashionable
was driven by a passion for whirling, swooping and inventing new
postures and fantastic steps. The young men had slim straight
bodies and light movements. Their clothes fitted their suppleness
to perfection. Robin thought they all looked as if they had had
a great deal of delightful exercise and plenty of pleasure all
their lives.
They were of that stream which had always seemed to be rushing
past her in bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to
them as part of their existence, but which had had nothing to do
with her own youth. Now the stream had paused as if she had for
the moment some connection with it. The swift light she was used
to seeing illuminate glancing eyes as she passed people in the
street, she saw again and again as new arrivals appeared. Kathryn
was quite excited by her eyes and eyelashes and George hovered
about. There was a great deal of hovering. At the dinner table
sleek young heads held themselves at an angle which allowed of
their owners seeing through or around, or under floral decorations
and alert young eyes showed an eager gleam. After dinner was
over and dancing began the Duchess smiled shrewdly as she saw the
gravitating masculine movement towards a certain point. It was
the point where Robin stood with a small growing circle about her.
It was George who danced with her first. He was tall and slender
and flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of
build. He had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and
knew all the latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin
was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway
and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music,
the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister
nymphs flew past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy.
A brief, uncontrollable ripple of laughter broke from her before
she had circled the room twice.
"How heavenly it is!" she exclaimed and lifted her eyes to Halwyn's.
"How heavenly!"
They were not safe eyes to lift in such a way to those of a very
young man. They gave George a sudden enjoyable shock. He had
heard of the girl who was a sort of sublimated companion to his
grandmother. The Duchess herself had talked to him a little about
her and he had come to the party intending to behave very amiably
and help the little thing enjoy herself. He had also encountered
before in houses where there were no daughters the smart well-born,
young companion who was allowed all sorts of privileges because
she knew how to assume tiresome little responsibilities and how
to be entertaining enough to add cheer and spice to the life of
the elderly and lonely. Sometimes she was a subtly appealing sort
of girl and given to being sympathetic and to liking sympathy and
quiet corners in conservatories or libraries, and sometimes she
was capable of scientific flirtation and required scientific
management. A man had to have his wits about him. This one as she
flew like a blown leaf across the floor and laughed up into his
face with wide eyes, produced a new effect and was a new kind.
"It's you who are heavenly," he answered with a boy's laugh. "You
are like a feather--and a willow wand."
"You are light too," she laughed back, "and you are like steel as
well."
Mrs. Alan Stacy, the lady with the magnificent henna hair, had
recently given less time to him, being engaged in the preliminary
instruction of a new member of the Infant Class. Such things will,
of course, happen and though George had quite ingenuously raged
in secret, the circumstances left him free to "hover" and hovering
was a pastime he enjoyed.
"Let us go on like this forever and ever," he said sweeping half
the length of the room with her and whirling her as if she were
indeed a leaf in the wind, "Forever and ever."
"I wish we could. But the music will stop," she gave back.
"Music ought never to stop--never," he answered.
But the music did stop and when it began again almost immediately
another tall, flexible young man made a lightning claim on her
and carried her away only to hand her to another and he in his
turn to another. She was not allowed more than a moment's rest
and borne on the crest of the wave of young delight, she did not
need more. Young eyes were always laughing into hers and elating
her by a special look of pleasure in everything she did or said
or inspired in themselves. How was she informed without phrases
that for this exciting evening she was a creature without a flaw,
that the loveliness of her eyes startled those who looked into
them, that it was a thrilling experience to dance with her, that
somehow she was new and apart and wonderful? No sleek-haired, slim
and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these things to her,
but somehow they were conveyed and filled her with a wondering
realization of the fact that if they were true, they were no longer
dreadful and maddening, since they only made people like and want
to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be liked seemed
so heavenly natural and right--to be only like air and sky and
free, happy breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful little
uplifted look about her which she herself was not aware of, but
which was singularly stimulating to the masculine beholder. It only
meant indeed that as she whirled and swayed and swooped laughing
she was saying to herself at intervals,
"This is what other girls feel like. They are happy like this.
I am laughing and talking to people just as other girls do. I am
Robin Gareth-Lawless, but I am enjoying a party like this--a YOUNG
party."
Lady Lothwell sitting near her mother watched the trend of affairs
with an occasional queer interested smile.
"Well, mamma darling," she said at last as youth and beauty whirled
by in a maelstrom of modern Terpsichorean liveliness, "she is a
great success. I don't know whether it is quite what you intended
or not."
The Duchess did not explain what she had intended. She was watching
the trend also and thinking a good deal. On the whole Lady Lothwell
had scarcely expected that she would explain. She rarely did. She
seldom made mistakes, however.
Kathryn in her scant gauzy strips of white and silver having
drifted towards them at the moment stood looking on with a funny
little disturbed expression on her small, tip-tilted face.
"There's something ABOUT her, grandmamma," she said.
"All the girls see it and no one knows what it is. She's sitting
out for a few minutes and just look at George--and Hal Brunton--and
Captain Willys. They are all laughing, of course, and pretending
to joke, but they would like to eat each other up. Perhaps it's
her eyelashes. She looks out from under them as if they were a
curtain."
Lady Lothwell's queer little smile became a queer little laugh.
"Yes. It gives her a look of being ecstatically happy and yet
almost shy and appealing at the same time. Men can't stand it of
course."
"None of them are trying to stand it," answered little Lady Kathryn
somewhat in the tone of a retort.
"I don't believe she knows she does it," Lady Lothwell said quite
reflectively.
"She does not know at all. That is the worst of it," commented the
Duchess.
"Then you see that there IS a worst," said her daughter.
The Duchess glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled
fret of the girl's forehead was even at the moment melting into
a smile as a young man of much attraction descended upon her with
smiles of his own and carried her into the Tango or Fox Trot or
Antelope Galop, whichsoever it chanced to be.
"If she were really aware of it that would be 'the worst' for
other people--for us probably. She could look out from under her
lashes to sufficient purpose to call what she wanted and take and
keep it. As she is not aware, it will make things less easy for
herself--under the circumstances."
"The circumstance of being Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter is not
an agreeable one," said Lady Lothwell.
"It might give some adventurous boys ideas when they had time to
realize all it means. Do you know I am rather sorry for her myself.
I shouldn't be surprised if she were rather a dear little thing.
She looks tender and cuddle-some. Perhaps she is like the heroine
of a sentimental novel I read the other day. Her chief slave said
of her 'She walks into a man's heart through his eyes and sits
down there and makes a warm place which will never get cold again.'
Rather nice, I thought."
The Duchess thought it rather nice also.
"'Never get cold again,'" she repeated. "What a heavenly thing
to happen to a pair of creatures--if--" she paused and regarded
Robin, who at the other side of the room was trying to decide
some parlous question of dances to which there was more than one
claimant. She was sweetly puckering her brow over her card and
round her were youthful male faces looking eager and even a trifle
tense with repressed anxiety for the victory of the moment.
"Oh!" Lady Lothwell laughed. "As Kitty says 'There's something
about her' and it's not mere eyelashes. You have let loose a germ
among us, mamma my sweet, and you can't do anything with a germ
when you have let it loose. To quote Kitty again, 'Look at George!'"
The music which came from the bower behind which the musicians
were hidden seemed to gain thrill and wildness as the hours went
on. As the rooms grew warmer the flowers breathed out more reaching
scent. Now and again Robin paused for a moment to listen to strange
delightful chords and to inhale passing waves of something like
mignonette and lilies, and apple blossoms in the sun. She thought
there must be some flower which was like all three in one. The
rushing stream was carrying her with it as it went--one of the
happy petals on its surface. Could it ever cast her aside and
leave her on the shore again? While the violins went singing on
and the thousand wax candles shone on the faint or vivid colours
which mingled into a sort of lovely haze, it did not seem possible
that a thing so enchanting and so real could have an end at all.
All the other things in her life seemed less real tonight.
In the conservatory there was a marble fountain which had long
years ago been brought from a palace garden in Rome. It was not
as large as it was beautiful and it had been placed among palms
and tropic ferns whose leaves and fronds it splashed merrily among
and kept deliciously cool and wet-looking. There was a quite
intoxicating hot-house perfume of warm damp moss and massed flowers
and it was the kind of corner any young man would feel it necessary
to gravitate towards with a partner.
George led Robin to it and she naturally sat upon the edge of the
marble basin and as naturally drew off a glove and dipped her hand
into the water, splashing it a little because it felt deliciously
cool. George stood near at first and looked down at her bent head.
It was impossible not also to take in her small fine ear and the
warm velvet white of the lovely little nape of her slim neck. He
took them in with elated appreciation. He was not subtle minded
enough to be aware that her reply to a casual remark he had made
to her at dinner had had a remote effect upon him.
"One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. Gareth-Lawless,"
he had said. "Are you related to her?"
"I am her daughter," Robin had answered and with a slightly startled
sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities
while he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or
did not know.
An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or
twice during the evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had
actually been saved up for old Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea
if it was true. How had the Duchess got hold of her and why and
what was Coombe really up to? Could he have some elderly idea
of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did.
Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails.
He was not a desperate character, but he had been very intimate
with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends and it had made him careless.
Also Robin had drawn him--drawn him more than he knew.
"Is it still heavenly?" he asked. (How pointed her fingers were
and how soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a
child's.)
"More heavenly every minute," she answered. He laughed outright.
"The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I
never saw a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars
as you dance."
"That's like a skyrocket," Robin laughed back. "And it's because
in all my life I never went to a dance before."
"Never! You mean except to children's parties?"
"There were no children's parties. This is the first--first--first."
"Well, I don't see how that happened, but I am glad it did because
it's been a great thing for me to see you at your first--first--first."
He sat down on the fountain's edge near her.
"I shall not forget it," he said.
"I shall remember it as long as I live," said Robin and she lifted
her unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still
more unsafe.
Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was
because he was immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight
rein on his fleeting emotions, even the next moment he felt that
it was because he was an idiot--but suddenly he found he had let
himself go and was kissing the warm velvet of the slim little
nape--had kissed it twice.
He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a
result, but what did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One
furious splash of the curled hand flung water into his face and
eyes and mouth while Robin tore herself free from him and stood
blazing with fury and woe--for it was not only fury he saw.
"You--You--!" she cried and actually would have swooped to the
fountain again if he had not caught her arm.
He was furious himself--at himself and at her.
"You--little fool!" he gasped. "What did you do that for even if
I WAS a jackass? There was nothing in it. You're so pretty----"
"You've spoiled everything!" she flamed, "everything--everything!"
"I've spoiled nothing. I've only been a fool--and it's your own
fault for being so pretty."
"You've spoiled everything in the world! Now--" with a desolate
horrible little sob, "now I can only go back--BACK!"
He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and
he had made the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute
grief in it that he involuntarily drew near her.
"I say," he was really breathless, "don't speak like that. I beg
pardon. I'll grovel! Don't--Oh! Kathryn--COME here."
This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks
of hot-house bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn
suddenly appeared. She immediately stopped short and stared at
them both--looking from one to the other.
"What is the matter?" she asked in a low voice.
"Oh! COME and talk to her," George broke forth. "I feel as if she
might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I've been a lunatic
and she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her--tell
her you've been kissed yourself."
A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn's face. A delicate
vein of her grandmother's wisdom made part of her outlook upon a
rapidly moving and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound
or dull and for a slight gauzy white and silver thing she was
astute.
"Don't be impudent," she said to George as she walked up to Robin
and put a cool hand on her arm. "He's only been silly. You'd better
let him off," she said. She turned a glance on George who was
wiping his sleeve with a handkerchief and she broke into a small
laugh, "Did she push you into the fountain?" she asked cheerfully.
"She threw the fountain at me," grumbled George. "I shall have to
dash off home and change."
"I would," replied Kathryn still cheerful. "You can apologize
better when you're dry."
He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood
and gazed at each other. Robin's flame had died down and her face
had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know
that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked
at another girl in the quite different days of her youth.
"I'll tell you something now he's gone," she said. "I HAVE been
kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George
don't really matter, though of course it's bad manners. But who
has got good manners? Things rush so that there's scarcely time
for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it's
sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a
good idea," and she laughed again.
"I didn't push him in."
"I wish you had," with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however,
the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. "You
see," she said protestingly, "you are so FRIGHTFULLY pretty."
"I'd rather be a leper," Robin shot forth.
But Kathryn did not of course understand.
"What nonsense!" she answered. "What utter rubbish! You know you
wouldn't. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother
was asking for George."
She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she
did so added something.
"By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of
the Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They
like it. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with
grandmamma. I can see they are quite excited in their quiet way."
As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment
with a new kind of impish smile.
"Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this
particular moment," she said. "And every man feels himself bristling
a little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with
Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess
made him stay. He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness."
Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the
Balkan tragedy and she as obviously did not care for the miracle.
"You don't ask who he is?" said Kathryn.
"I don't want to know."
"Oh! Come! You mustn't feel as sulky as that. You'll want to ask
questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name
is Donal Muir. He's Lord Coombe's heir. He'll be the Head of the
House of Coombe some day. Here he comes," quite excitedly, "Look!"
It was one of the tricks of Chance--or Fate--or whatever you will.
The dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment
and the slow walking steps he was taking held him--they were some
of the queer stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine
Tango. He was finely and smoothly fitted as the other youngsters
were, his blond glossed head was set high on a heroic column of
neck, he was broad of shoulder, but not too broad, slim of waist,
but not too slim, long and strong of leg, but light and supple
and firm. He had a fair open brow and a curved mouth laughing to
show white teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear a kilt and plaid and
that an eagle's feather ought to be standing up from a chieftain's
bonnet on the fair hair which would have waved if it had been
allowed length enough. He was scarcely two yards from her now and
suddenly--almost as if he had been called--he turned his eyes away
from Sara Studleigh who was the little thing in Christmas tree
scarlet. They were blue like the clear water in a tarn when the
sun shines on it and they were still laughing as his mouth was.
Straight into hers they laughed--straight into hers.