The Gray Dawn Part 23

"Where can Charley be!" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent distress. "Don't wait here with me. I a.s.sure you I do not in the least mind sitting alone."

But she said it in a fas.h.i.+on that made it impossible, and in this manner Nan lost her first engagement with her husband. Not that it mattered particularly, she told herself, grand marches were rather silly things, and yet she could not avoid a feeling of thwarted pique at being so tied to the wall.

At the close of the march, and after the couples had pretty well resumed their seats, Mrs. Sherwood entered, unattended and very leisurely. She made, in her quieter manner, a greater sensation than had Mrs. Morrell. Quite self-possessed, carrying herself with her customary poise, dressed un.o.btrusively in black and gold, but with the distinction of an indubitable Parisian model, moving without self-consciousness in contrast to many of the other women, her small head high, her direct gaze a-smoulder with lazy amus.e.m.e.nt, she glided across the middle of the floor. The eyes of every woman in the ballroom were upon her. The "respectable" element stared shamelessly, making comments aside. Those a little _decla.s.se_, on the fringe of society, or the "faster" women like Mrs. Morrell--who might in a way be considered her rivals--were apparently quite unaware of her. She made her unhasting way to a vacant chair, sat down, and looked calmly about her.

Immediately she was surrounded by a swarm of the unattached men. The attached men became very attentive to their partners.

"Hullo," remarked Keith cheerfully. "There's Mrs. Sherwood. I must go over and say good-evening to her."

On sudden impulse Nan rose with him. She instinctively disliked her present company and the situation; and a sudden pang of conscience had told her that not once since she had left the Bella Union had she laid eyes on the woman who had received her with so much kindness.

"Take me with you," she said to Keith.

"My dear!" cried Mrs. Morrell. "You wouldn't! Take my advice--you're young and innocent!"

She sought one of those exclusive, private-joke glances at Keith, but failed to catch his eye.

"She was very kind to me when I arrived," said Nan serenely. Keith, hesitated; then his impulsive, warm-hearted loyalty spoke.

"Good for you, Nan!" he cried.

They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lip and planning revenges.

The group around Mrs. Sherwood fell away at their approach. Nan sat down next her, leaning forward with a pretty and girlish, impulsiveness.

"It's ages since I have seen you, and I have no excuse to offer," she said. "The days slip by."

"I know," said Mrs. Sherwood. "New house, new Chinaman, even new dog--enough to drive the most important thoughts out of one's head. But you've come out to-night like a flower, my dear. Your gown is charming, and it suits you so well!"

She chatted on, speaking of the floor, the music, the decorations, the crowd.

"I love this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the ma.s.s amuse me. Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him.

I told him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort,"

smoothing away what little embarra.s.sment might linger. The music started up again. The Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs. Sherwood looked after them, her bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had yet spoken to her.

"Isn't she simply stunning?" cried Keith. "She has something about her that makes most of these others look cheap."

"She's really wonderfully attractive and distinguished looking," agreed Nan.

"If she were only a little less practical--a little softer; more feminine--she'd be a sure-enough man killer. As it is, she needs a little more--you know what I mean--"

"More after Mrs. Morrell's fas.h.i.+on," suggested Nan a trifle wickedly.

It popped out on the impulse, and the next instant Nan would have given anything if the words had not been said. Keith was arrested in mid-enthusiasm as though by cold water. He checked himself, looked at her sharply, then accepted the pseudo-challenge.

"Well, Mrs. Morrell, for all her little vulgarities, impresses you as being a very human sort of person."

He felt a sudden and unreasoning anger, possibly because the shot had hit a tender place.

"Shall we dance?" he suggested formally.

"I'm sorry," replied Nan, "I have this with Mr. Sansome; there he comes."

For the first time Keith felt a little irritated at the ubiquitous Sansome; but his sense of justice, while it could not smooth his ruffled feelings, nevertheless made itself heard.

"What I need is a drink," he told himself.

At the buffet he found a crowd of the non-dancing men, or those who had failed to get the early numbers. Here were many of his acquaintances; among them, to his surprise, he recognized the grim features of Malcolm Neil. All were drinking champagne. Keith joined them. They chaffed him unmercifully about his purchases of clouded t.i.tles in water lots, and he answered them in kind, aware of Neil's sardonically humorous eye fixed on him. But at the first bars of the next dance he bolted in search of Mrs. Morrell, with whom, he remembered, he had this number.

Mrs. Morrell danced smoothly and lightly for a woman of her size, but was inclined to snuggle up too close, to permit undistracted guidance to her partner. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions with other couples, unless one possessed a Spartan mind and an iron will. In spite of himself, Keith became increasingly aware of her breast pressing against his chest; her smooth arm against his shoulder; the occasional pa.s.sing contact of her, scarcely veiled from the sense of touch by the thin flame-coloured silk; the perfume she affected; the faint odour of her bright blond hair. In an attempt to break the spell he made some ba.n.a.l remark, but she shook her head impatiently. She danced with her eyes half closed. When the music stopped she drew a deep sighing breath.

"You dance--oh, divinely!" she cried. "I might have known it."

She moved away, and Keith followed her, a trifle intoxicated.

"Let me see your card," she demanded abruptly. "Why, you haven't done your duty; this is hardly a third filled!"

"I hadn't started to fill it--and then you came in," breathed Keith.

They were opposite the door leading into one of the numerous small rooms off the main floor of the armoury.

"Let's sit here--and you can get me a punch," she suggested.

He brought the punch, and she drank it slowly, leaning back in an easy chair. The place was dimly lighted, and her blond, full beauty was more effective than in the more brilliantly lighted ballroom. Mrs. Morrell exerted all her fascination. The next dance was half over before either Keith or--apparently--Mrs. Morrell became aware of the fact.

"Oh, you must run!" she cried, apparently greatly exercised. "Don't mind me; go and find your partner."

Keith replied, that he had this dance free, a fact of which her inspection of his card had perfectly informed her. In answer to his return solicitation as to her own partner, she shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, he'll find me," she said indifferently. "This is very cozy here."

They resumed what had become an ardent flirtation. Toward the end of the dance Mrs. Morrell's partner came in, looking very flurried. Before he could say a word, Mrs. Morrell began reproachfully to chide him with lack of diligence.

"I've been waiting just _rooted_ to this spot!" she said truthfully.

"Shall we dance?" suggested the unfortunate young man.

"It's nearly over," replied Mrs. Morrell carelessly. "Do sit down with us. Get yourself something to drink. _Don't go!_" she commanded Keith fiercely under her breath.

At the beginning of the fourth dance, however, her next partner found her and led her away. She "made a face" over her shoulder at Keith.

When a woman makes up her mind to monopolize a man who has not acquired the fine arts of rudeness and escape she generally succeeds. Keith's cordial nature was incapable of rudeness. Besides, being a perfectly normal man, and Mrs. Morrell experienced and attractive, he liked being monopolized. It crossed his mind once or twice that he might be in for a scolding when he got home. Nan might be absurd. But he was so secure in his essential loyalty to Nan that his present conduct was more in the nature of a delightfully naughty escapade than anything else. He stole the apples now, and later would go dutifully for his licking. Men of Keith's nature are easily held and managed by a wise woman, but the woman must be very wise. Keith loved celebrations. On the wings of an occasion he rose joyfully and readily to incredible alt.i.tudes of high-spirited but harmless recklessness. Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years, Christmas, arrivals, departures, he seized upon with rapture.

Each had its appropriate ceremonial, its traditional drink, the painstaking brewing of which was a sacred rite. On such occasions he tossed aside the cloak of the everyday. A "celebration" meant that you were different. Humdrum life and habits must be relegated to the background. It was permitted that, unabashed, you be as silly, as frivolous, as inconsequential, as boisterous, as lighthearted, as delightfully irresponsible as your ordinary concealed boyishness pleased. Customary repressions had nothing to do here. This was a celebration! And in the aforementioned our very wise woman would have seen--a safety valve.

Keith was off on a celebration to-night: an unpremeditated, freakish, impish, essentially harmless celebration, with a faint flavour of mischief in it because he had Nan in the back of his head all the time.

He played up to Mrs. Morrell with exuberance, with honestly no thought except that he was having a whacking good time, and that old Nan was being teased. It was characteristic that for the time being he fell completely under Mrs. Morrell's fascination. They were together fully half the time, appearing on the floor only occasionally, then disappearing in one or the other of the many nooks. Mrs. Morrell "bolted" her dances shamelessly. Keith thought her awfully amusing and ingenious in the way she managed this. Sometimes they hid in out-of-the-way places. Sometimes she pretended to have mistaken the dance. "The sixth, are you very _sure_? I'm convinced it is only the fifth." Keith's conscience troubled him a little concerning the few names on his own card.

"I have this with Mrs. Wilkins," said he. "I really ought to go and look her up."