She caught her breath and opened her lips to speak, but didn’t speak. She was remembering something, and trying not to remember it.
Algy said quickly, “What is it, Gay?” and she said nothing. And then,
“Why should anyone put an envelope in your pocket?”
Algy leaned an elbow on the table.
“I think someone had the kind thought that my rooms might be searched, and that it might be found there. Fortunately I found it myself.”
Gay leaned over the table too.
“Algy-how horrid! Who could possibly-”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
She spoke quickly.
“You’re not-in any trouble? It’s not-it’s not serious?”
“It might be.”
“How?” The word was rather breathless.
He looked away from her because it was dangerous to be so near, to see her eyes so soft and anxious-for him. He said in a studiously quiet voice,
“Someone’s trying to get me into trouble. If they bring it off, I should be finished as far as my present job is concerned, and as far as politics are concerned. There’d be a black mark against me. But they’re not going to bring it off. I’m going to get to the bottom of it and clear myself.”
“You can’t tell me about it?”
He did look at her then. This was a Gay he had not seen before-serious, troubled. He said,
“I don’t think so. You’ll hear the talk-you’re bound to.”
Her lip quivered. She put up her hand to it like a child and shook her head.
“I wouldn’t listen-you know that. Won’t you tell me?”
“I don’t think I must, Gay.”
She looked away with a quick turn of the head as if he had hurt her. He found his hand on her arm.
“Gay-don’t. I’d like to tell you, but it’s not my affair.”
Gay jumped up.
“Come and dance! That’s what we came here for, isn’t it? Oh, no-you did say something about wanting to talk to me-didn’t you? But of course-how stupid of me-you only meant to find out whether someone had been blackmailing me into putting stolen whatnots into your pocket.”
“Gay!” He had got up too. There was the width of the table between them, and hard breaking waves of anger.
Gay’s head was high and her eyes bright.
“Well, that was it, wasn’t it! Wasn’t it? You can’t say it wasn’t-can you?”
Algy was quite as angry as she was-angrier perhaps, because he had the disadvantage of a guilty conscience. He smiled and said,
“Is this an invitation to the waltz?”
Gay considered. Even in the middle of her just indignation she could be practical. If you quarrel with your young man at a night-club, proper pride demands that you either go off with someone else or that you take a taxi home. As the only possible alternative to Algy was Mr. Danvers, and going home would mean more capital punishment, she blenched. Her lip twitched and she broke into an angry laugh.
“For tuppence I’d catch the Danvers ’ eye!”
Algy produced the tuppence and held it out.
“This will be number two in our programme entitled ‘Why Girls Take Gas.’ Go on-I dare you!”
“Algy, you’re a beast!”
He put the coppers in his pocket, slipped his arm round her waist, and said,
“Fierce-aren’t you? Come along and dance.”
XIV
They had made their way as part of a rhythmically moving crowd to the other side of the room, when Gay looked across the packed floor and said in a surprised voice,
“There’s Sylvia-and Francis.”
Algy looked with admiration at Sylvia in white, and with interest at the big fair man beside her.
“They’re a good-looking couple.”
“Yes. I only met him once-and at the wedding, you know. I was a bridesmaid. But you couldn’t miss him, could you?”
The Colesboroughs penetrated the dancing mass and were absorbed, but the two fair heads could be distinguished. Algy followed them with his eyes, then turned to Gay.
“My word, she’s lovely! What’s she really like, Gay?”
Gay lifted eyes with a sparkle in them.
“You’ve danced with her, darling.”
“You always call me darling when you’re annoyed. Does one know what a person is really like after dancing with her once?”
Gay said, “You very often think you do when it’s someone like Sylvia.”
He let that go, and said in a serious voice,
“I really want to know. Tell me what she’s like.”
Gay dropped her lashes. She said,
“I’ve known her all my life. I’ve never seen her lose her temper.”
“Yes?” said Algy in an encouraging tone. “She looks like that. What else?”
“She likes beautiful things.”
“That’s not a crime.”
The lashes went up again.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Did you mean that she likes herself?”
Gay’s eyes sparkled suddenly.
“Darling, how prig! That’s not a crime either. I love myself very, very much, and so do you.”
“Yes-I think I do,” said Algy in an odd voice.
Gay’s cheeks burned.
“I love my self, and you love your self,” she said as quickly as her tongue would go.
“I didn’t mean that,” said Algy. “You know what I meant, but I oughtn’t to have said it, so I’m not going to say it again, but when this mess is cleared up-”
“We were talking about Sylvia,” said Gay in a hurry.
“Yes-go on telling me about her.”
“There isn’t anything more to tell.”
“You mean that?”
Gay said, “Yes.”
“Nothing behind all that except a sweet temper?”
“The house is practically unfurnished,” said Gay.
The music stopped. As they went towards their table, the Colesboroughs emerged from a group that was breaking up. The Westgates were in the centre of it with Sir James Harringay, the well-known K.C. Linda waved a hand. Giles nodded. Sir James looked, and looked away. It was not quite a cut, but it was as near as makes no difference. Gay saw what was impossible to miss-she saw Algy’s jaw stiffen. She rushed into a “How do you do?” to Francis Colesborough, and then tingled lest she should have done the wrong thing. But Francis made himself pleasant, asked why he hadn’t seen her since the wedding, said she must come down to Cole Lester, and was polite to Algy. Sylvia put her hand through Gay’s arm and pinched it-an old signal that meant “I want to speak to you.” They passed on.
When they were at their table, Algy said, “What about Colesborough? He’s not an uninhabited house, I take it.”
Gay said “No” in a doubtful voice. “I don’t know him-I think he’s good to Sylvia-I think she’s afraid of him-I don’t know him.”
They danced again. When the final chord blared out Sylvia came to them through the crowd. Algy could not help saying, “How beautifully she moves.” There was no hurry, no effort. The crowd did not seem to impede her. She took her own easy, floating way. But there was no ease in the look that met Gay’s and spoke an urgent message. It said, “I must see you,” but her words were commonplace enough.
“Darling, I’m coming to bits. Be an angel and pin me.”
She carried Gay off. In the cloakroom, at the farthest glass, she began in a rapid whisper.
“I simply had to see you. It’s too dreadful. I don’t know what to do.”
The cloakroom was empty except for a stolid sandy-haired attendant who seemed more than half asleep. Gay said in a exasperated undertone,
“What on earth has happened now?”
Sylvia clutched her.
“Nothing-not yet-but it will. I mean, he’ll make me do it-and I’m so frightened.”
“Sylly, we can’t stay here. If you want to say anything, say it.”
“I am,” said Sylvia with tears in her eyes. “You know when I rang you up last night, and I thought it was going to be all right because Francis was away so of course there wasn’t anything I could do about his keys, and I was quite happy, but then it came over me that that Zero man would be waiting on the doorstep, and I thought how odd it would look-if anyone saw him, you know-so I thought I’d just go down and tell him it wasn’t any good, and just as I was getting the window open-”