‘She’s taking a good look this time,’ said a bystander at last, and the remark seemed to pierce her reverie—she turned round slowly and then gave a tremendous start; she was on her feet in a moment. ‘I’m so sorry,’ someone heard her say as she gave the man her hand, ‘I never saw you. I had no idea that anyone was there.’
A few minutes later Jane Manning, who had taken as much share in the proceedings as a hostess can, felt a touch upon her arm. It was Marion.
‘Well, my dear,’ she said. ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’
Marion’s voice shook a little. ‘Marvellously!’ She added in an amused tone:
‘Queer fellow I got hold of just now.’
‘Queer-looking, do you mean?’
‘Really I don’t know; he was wearing a sort of death-mask that covered him almost completely, and he was made up as well, I thought, with French chalk.’
‘What else was queer about him?’
‘He didn’t talk. I couldn’t get a word out of him.’
‘Perhaps he was deaf.’
‘That occurred to me. But he heard the music all right; he danced beautifully.’
‘Show him to me.’
Marion’s eyes hovered round the room without catching sight of her late partner.
‘He doesn’t seem to be here.’
‘Perhaps he’s our uninvited guest,’ said Jane, laughing. ‘Jack told me there was an extra person who couldn’t be accounted for. Now, darling, you mustn’t miss this figure: it’s the most amusing of them all. After that, there are some favours to be given, and then supper. I long for it.’
‘But don’t we take off our masks first?’
‘Yes, of course, I’d forgotten that.’
The figure described by Mrs. Manning as being the most amusing of all would have been much more amusing, Marion thought, if they had played it without masks. If the dancers did not recognize each other, it lost a great deal of its point. Its success depended on surprise. A space had been cleared in the middle of the room, an oblong space like a badminton court, divided into two, not by a net but by a large white sheet supported at either end by the leaders of the cotillon, and held nearly at arm’s length above their heads. On one side were grouped the men, on the other the women, theoretically invisible to each other; but Marion noticed that they moved about and took furtive peeps at each other round the sides, a form of cheating which, in the interludes, the leaders tried to forestall by rushing the sheet across to intercept the view. But most of the time these stolen glimpses went on unchecked, to the accompaniment of a good deal of laughter; for while the figure was in progress the leaders were perforce stationary. One by one the men came up from behind and clasped the top edge of the sheet, so that their gloved fingers, and nothing else, were visible the farther side. With becoming hesitation a woman would advance and take these anonymous fingers in her own; then the sheet was suddenly lowered and the dancers stood face to face, or rather mask to mask. Sometimes there were cries of recognition, sometimes silence, the masks were as impenetrable as the sheet had been.
It was Marion’s turn. As she walked forward she saw that the gloved hands were not resting on the sheet like the rest; they were clutching it so tightly that the linen was caught up in creases between the fingers and crumpled round their tips. For a moment they did not respond to her touch, then they gripped with surprising force. Down went the leader’s arms, down went the corners of the sheet. But Marion’s unknown partner did not take his cue. He forgot to release the sheet, and she remained with her arms held immovably aloft, the sheet falling in folds about her and almost covering her head. ‘An unrehearsed effect, jolly good, I call it,’ said somebody. At last, in response to playful tugs and twitches from the leaders, the man let the sheet go and discovered himself to the humiliated Marion. It was her partner of the previous figure, that uncommunicative man. His hands, that still held hers, felt cold through their kid covering.
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I can’t understand it—I feel so cold. Let’s dance.’
They danced for a little and then sat down. Marion felt chillier than ever, and she heard her neighbours on either side complaining of the temperature. Suddenly she made a decision and rose to her feet.
‘Do take me somewhere where it’s warmer,’ she said. ‘I’m perished here.’
The man led the way out of the ballroom, through the ante-room at the end where one or two couples were sitting, across the corridor into a little room where a good fire was burning, throwing every now and then a ruddy gleam on china ornaments and silver photograph frames. It was Mrs. Manning’s sitting-room.
‘We don’t need a light, do we?’ said her companion. ‘Let’s sit as we are.’
It was the first time he had volunteered a remark. His voice was somehow familiar to Marion, yet she couldn’t place it; it had an alien quality that made it unrecognizable, like one’s own dress worn by someone else.
‘With pleasure,’ she said. ‘But we mustn’t stay long, must we? It’s only a few minutes to twelve. Can we hear the music from here?’
They sat in silence, listening. There was no sound.
‘Don’t think me fussy,’ Marion said. ‘I’m enjoying this tremendously, but Jenny would be disappointed if we missed the last figure. If you don’t mind opening the door, we should hear the music begin.’
As he did not offer to move, she got up to open it herself, but before she reached the door she heard her name called.
‘Marion!’
‘Who said that, you?’ she cried, suddenly very nervous.
‘Don’t you know who I am?’
‘Harry!’
Her voice shook and she sank back into her chair, trembling violently.
‘How was it I didn’t recognize you? I’m—I’m so glad to see you.’
‘You haven’t seen me yet,’ said he. It was like him to say that, playfully grim. His words reassured her, but his tone left her still in doubt. She did not know how to start the conversation, what effect to aim at, what note to strike; so much depended on divining his mood and playing up to it. If she could have seen his face, if she could even have caught a glimpse of the poise of his head, it would have given her a cue; in the dark like this, hardly certain of his whereabouts in the room, she felt hopelessly at a disadvantage.
‘It was nice of you to come and see me—if you did come to see me,’ she ventured at last.
‘I heard you were to be here.’ Again that non-committal tone! Trying to probe him she said:
‘Would you have come otherwise? It’s rather a childish entertainment, isn’t it?’
‘I should have come,’ he answered, ‘but it would have been in—in a different spirit.’
She could make nothing of this.
‘I didn’t know the Mannings were friends of yours,’ she told him. ‘He’s rather a dear, married to a dull woman, if I must be really truthful.’
‘I don’t know them,’ said he.
‘Then you gate-crashed?’
‘I suppose I did.’
‘I take that as a compliment,’ said Marion after a pause. ‘But—forgive me—I must be very slow—I don’t understand. You said you were coming in any case.’
‘Some friends of mine called Chillingworth offered to bring me.’
‘How lucky I was! So you came with them?’
‘Not with them, after them.’
‘How odd. Wasn’t there room for you in their car? How did you get here so quickly?’
‘The dead travel fast.’