A Laodicean Part 18

'You need not say so. That bald-headed gentleman is forty-five. He does not think of younger men.'

'Have YOU a dance to spare for me?'

Her face grew stealthily redder in the candle-light. 'O!--I have no engagement at all--I have refused. I hardly feel at liberty to dance; it would be as well to leave that to my visitors.'

'Why?'

'My father, though he allowed me to be taught, never liked the idea of my dancing.'

'Did he make you promise anything on the point?'

'He said he was not in favour of such amus.e.m.e.nts--no more.'

'I think you are not bound by that, on an informal occasion like the present.'

She was silent.

'You will just once?' said he.

Another silence. 'If you like,' she venturesomely answered at last.

Somerset closed the hand which was hanging by his side, and somehow hers was in it. The dance was nearly formed, and he led her forward. Several persons looked at them significantly, but he did not notice it then, and plunged into the maze.

Never had Mr. Somerset pa.s.sed through such an experience before. Had he not felt her actual weight and warmth, he might have fancied the whole episode a figment of the imagination. It seemed as if those musicians had thrown a double sweetness into their notes on seeing the mistress of the castle in the dance, that a perfumed southern atmosphere had begun to pervade the marquee, and that human beings were shaking themselves free of all inconvenient gravitation.

Somerset's feelings burst from his lips. 'This is the happiest moment I have ever known,' he said. 'Do you know why?'

'I think I saw a flash of lightning through the opening of the tent,'

said Paula, with roguish abruptness.

He did not press for an answer. Within a few minutes a long growl of thunder was heard. It was as if Jove could not refrain from testifying his jealousy of Somerset for taking this covetable woman so presumptuously in his arms.

The dance was over, and he had retired with Paula to the back of the tent, when another faint flash of lightning was visible through an opening. She lifted the canvas, and looked out, Somerset looking out behind her. Another dance was begun, and being on this account left out of notice, Somerset did not hasten to leave Paula's side.

'I think they begin to feel the heat,' she said.

'A little ventilation would do no harm.' He flung back the tent door where he stood, and the light shone out upon the gra.s.s.

'I must go to the drawing-room soon,' she added. 'They will begin to leave shortly.'

'It is not late. The thunder-cloud has made it seem dark--see there; a line of pale yellow stretches along the horizon from west to north.

That's evening--not gone yet. Shall we go into the fresh air for a minute?'

She seemed to signify a.s.sent, and he stepped off the tent-floor upon the ground. She stepped off also.

The air out-of-doors had not cooled, and without definitely choosing a direction they found themselves approaching a little wooden tea-house that stood on the lawn a few yards off. Arrived here, they turned, and regarded the tent they had just left, and listened to the strains that came from within it.

'I feel more at ease now,' said Paula.

'So do I,' said Somerset.

'I mean,' she added in an undeceiving tone, 'because I saw Mrs. Goodman enter the tent again just as we came out here; so I have no further responsibility.'

'I meant something quite different. Try to guess what.'

She teasingly demurred, finally breaking the silence by saying, 'The rain is come at last,' as great drops began to fall upon the ground with a smack, like pellets of clay.

In a moment the storm poured down with sudden violence, and they drew further back into the summer-house. The side of the tent from which they had emerged still remained open, the rain streaming down between their eyes and the lighted interior of the marquee like a tissue of gla.s.s threads, the brilliant forms of the dancers pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing behind the watery screen, as if they were people in an enchanted submarine palace.

'How happy they are!' said Paula. 'They don't even know that it is raining. I am so glad that my aunt had the tent lined; otherwise such a downpour would have gone clean through it.'

The thunder-storm showed no symptoms of abatement, and the music and dancing went on more merrily than ever.

'We cannot go in,' said Somerset. 'And we cannot shout for umbrellas. We will stay till it is over, will we not?'

'Yes,' she said, 'if you care to. Ah!'

'What is it?'

'Only a big drop came upon my head.'

'Let us stand further in.'

Her hand was hanging by her side, and Somerset's was close by. He took it, and she did not draw it away. Thus they stood a long while, the rain hissing down upon the gra.s.s-plot, and not a soul being visible outside the dancing-tent save themselves.

'May I call you Paula?' asked he.

There was no answer.

'May I?' he repeated.

'Yes, occasionally,' she murmured.

'Dear Paula!--may I call you that?'

'O no--not yet.'

'But you know I love you?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

'And shall I love you always?'

'If you wish to.'

'And will you love me?'

Paula did not reply.