Australia Revenged Part 4

"Certainly, Mr. Thomas."

"Miss Johnson--Mr. Wyckliffe," and the two met. Amy was too full of enjoyment to notice more than that her new acquaintance had a quiet manner, soft attractive voice, and a peculiarly penetrating gaze. She surrendered her programme, and, as he pa.s.sed it back to her, he merely bowed, and said:

"I have taken sixteen and eighteen, thank you."

The ball went merrily forward, both Reg and Amy enjoying themselves to the full. At the sixteenth dance Reg found himself disengaged, and went outside to have a smoke. He was scarcely half through his cigarette, when the fancy seized him to go back to the ball-room and watch Amy dancing. Standing in the doorway he marked each couple pa.s.s him, but without discovering the object of his search. He made his way round to Mrs. Whyte, but that good lady could only tell him that she had been claimed by her partner, Mr. Wyckliffe. Reg felt vaguely disturbed, how or why he scarcely knew; but he remembered Amy had once told him she never sat out a dance except with an old friend. He wandered away aimlessly, and when the next dance had begun and still Amy did not appear, he decided to look for her. Pausing at the refreshment buffet he was in the act of raising a gla.s.s to his lips when his eye caught sight of a portion of a dress he knew too well, partly hidden by some drapery hanging over a corner of the gallery. In the twinkling of an eye he ran up the stairs. Amy saw him coming, and drawing the drapery on one side, smiled at him. It was enough to dispel all his troublesome thoughts, and he came up to her and laughingly said:

"Ah, here you are, you truant. It is too bad to disappoint your partners in this way."

"Reg, this is Mr. Wyckliffe," said she, referring to her partner.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Morris," said that gentleman, rising with a smile and extending his hand.

"Thanks. I am delighted to make your acquaintance," answered Reg, shaking warmly in his genuine way the hand extended to him.

"Miss Johnson has been good enough to make a confidant of me," continued Wyck, lightly. "She has told me of your engagement and I hope you will let me congratulate you. You are a lucky man."

"I am, indeed," answered Reg, as politely as he could, though he felt strongly inclined to resent the familiarity from a man who had only met him and his _fiancee_ for the first time that evening.

"Miss Johnson mentioned that she was engaged for this dance with you, but as I have the next she agreed to sit them both out with me."

Reg began to grow uncomfortable, and turned to Amy, and said, "It's very cold here, Amy, I think you ought to go back, as Mrs. Whyte is looking for you."

"Oh! you won't desert me, will you, Miss Johnson?" said Wyck, gazing at her in an intense way, and exerting his will-power to the utmost.

"I'd rather stay, Reg," she answered, but the decision seemed to come from her reluctantly.

"I'll take care of her, Morris, never fear," said Wyck, smiling.

Reg looked from one to the other. He felt helpless, and in a predicament from which only a scene, which he abhorred, would extricate him. It was galling in the extreme to find a total stranger dictating to the girl he was engaged to.

"Then you won't come?" he asked.

"Not yet, Reg," she replied, in a languid manner, and he turned sharply on his heel and descended the stairs in a mood the reverse of amiable.

Here he ran against Tommy, whom he stopped and asked:

"Who's your friend Wyckliffe, Thomas?"

"Oh, old Wyck is a great friend of mine. Why do you ask? You don't look well, old chap. Come and have something to pull you together."

"No thanks. Look here, Thomas, I don't like the way your friend is going on."

"Why, what's he done?" asked Tommy, in feigned surprise, though he was rather enjoying the joke of badgering the jealous lover.

"Miss Johnson is an innocent girl, not up to the free-and-easy flirting ways of your Society friends, and she should not be compromised by sitting out three dances with a stranger."

"Come, old chap. You make too much fuss over a small matter. But look, there is Mrs. Whyte beckoning to you," said he, pointing to the lady in question, who was anxiously watching them. "I won't keep you."

"Where's Amy, Reg?" said Mrs. Whyte as he came near, in an anxious voice, somewhat louder than strict etiquette demanded.

Reg sat down beside her and told her Amy was sitting out with Mr.

Wyckliffe.

"What, three dances, Reg. I think I had better go to her."

"There is no need for that, for here she comes," answered Reg, quickly, as he saw Amy suddenly appear in the ball-room. A fierce pang of jealousy seized him when he noticed how she hung on her partner's arm.

"Hadn't we better go home, mother?" he said, "I am tired of this."

"Really, Mrs. Whyte," said Wyck, coming up to her with a bland expression of unconsciousness, "I must apologize for keeping Miss Johnson away from you so long; but it was so cool and pleasant in the gallery."

Mrs. Whyte merely bowed and said:

"Amy, come and let us fetch our cloaks, we are going home."

"All right, mother," she answered, quietly, her eyes fixed on Wyck's departing figure.

They pa.s.sed him again in the entrance hall, and as Amy shook hands with him and bade him good-night, Reg was maddened to notice Wyck stoop and whisper something to her, and to see her smile and nod in return.

The demeanour of the party on their return was so different, that even the old cabby could not help noticing it. Incessant chattering and gay bursts of laughter marked their journey to the ball-room, that "it did one's heart good," as the cabby put it. But on the return journey everyone was silent, gloomy and depressed. Whyte was waiting at the gate for them and, as he opened the door, cried out in his cheery voice, "Back again, my children," but, to his surprise, there was no response and, seeing Mrs. Whyte signal him to be quiet, he gave a low whistle and murmured under his breath, with a chuckle, "a lover's quarrel, by Jove."

Amy, on entering the house, went straight to her room and locked herself in; an occurrence so unique in the history of the Mia-Mia, that old Whyte stared open-mouthed at Reg, who had flung himself on the sofa, and asked:

"What's the matter, Reg?"

"I don't know, dad. I don't understand it at all."

"Have you quarrelled?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

Reg told him all he knew about the matter, which certainly did not seem much in the telling, and sitting-out being a common occurrence at b.a.l.l.s Whyte was disposed to look at it in the light of an attack of lovers'

jealousy, until Mrs. Whyte entered the room, looking very concerned, and, taking her husband's arm, burst into tears.

"Don't give way like that, missus. Why, what's the matter?" said he, tenderly.

"Oh, dad, dad, it's horrible. She has locked herself in her room, and is crying bitterly, but she won't open the door. Who would have thought our Amy would do such a thing. Oh, these horrid b.a.l.l.s!"

"It's not the ball," said Reg, fiercely. "It's that scoundrel Wyckliffe who is the cause of all this. I'll murder him."

"Reg, I am surprised at you talking like that," said Mrs. Whyte. "If Amy wished to stay with him, she--"

"Prefers him to me, is that it?" put in Reg, rising, and pacing the room, angrily.

"No, not that. I mean she is to blame."

"She's not to blame. If she had not met that fellow, there would have been no trouble."