When tea was over (and Lucy had been introduced to at least twenty different sets of parents) the drift back from the garden began, and Lucy overtook Miss Lux on the way to the house.

“I’m afraid that I am going to cry off tonight,” she said. “I feel a migraine coming.”

“That is a pity,” Lux said without emotion. “I have cried off too.”

“Oh, why?”

“I’m very tired, and upset about Rouse, and I don’t feel like going junketing in town.”

“You surprise me.”

“I surprise you? In what way?”

“I never thought I should live to see Catherine Lux being dishonest with herself.”

“Oh. And what am I fooling myself about?”

“If you have a look at your mind you’ll find that that’s not why you’re staying at home.”

“No? Why, then?”

“Because you get such pleasure out of telling Edward Adrian where he gets off.”

“A deplorable expression.”

“Descriptive, though. You simply jumped at the chance of being high and mighty with him, didn’t you?”

“I own that breaking the engagement was no effort.”

“And a little unkind?”

“A deplorable piece of self-indulgence by a shrew. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?”

“He is looking forward so much to having you. I can’t think why.”

“Thanks. I can tell you why. So that he can cry all over me and tell me how he hates acting — which is the breath of life to him.”

“Even if he bores you ——”

“If! My God!”

“—— you can surely put up with him for an hour or so, and not use Rouse’s accident as a sort of ace from your sleeve.”

“Are you trying to make an honest woman of me, Lucy Pym?”

“That is the general idea. I feel so sorry for him, being left —”

“My — good — woman,” Lux said, stabbing a forefinger at Lucy with each word, “never be sorry for Edward Adrian. Women spend the best years of their lives being sorry for him, and end by being sorry for it. Of all the self-indulgent, self-deceiving ——”

“But he has got a Johannisberger.”

Lux stopped, and smiled at her.

“I could do with a drink, at that,” she said reflectively.

She walked on a little.

“Are you really leaving Teddy high and dry?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“All right. You win. I was just being a beast. I’ll go. And every time he trots out that line about: ‘Oh, Catherine, how weary I am of this artificial life’ I shall think with malice: That Pym woman got me into this.”

“I can bear it,” Lucy said. “Has anyone heard how Rouse is?”

“Miss Hodge has just been on the telephone. She is still unconscious.”

Lucy, seeing Henrietta’s head through the window of her office — it was known as the office but was in reality the little sitting-room to the left of the front door — went in to compliment her on the success of the afternoon and so take her mind for at least a moment or two off the thing that oppressed it, and Miss Lux walked on. Henrietta seemed glad to see her, and even glad to have repeated to her the platitudes she had been listening to all the afternoon, and Lucy stayed talking to her for some time; so that the gallery was almost filled again when she took her seat to watch the dancing.

Seeing Edward Adrian in one of the gangway seats she paused and said:

“Catherine is coming.”

“And you?” he said, looking up.

“No, alas; I am having a migraine at six-thirty sharp.”

Whereupon he said: “Miss Pym, I adore you,” and kissed her hand.

His next-door neighbour looked startled, and someone behind tittered, but Lucy liked having her hand kissed. What was the good of putting rose-water and glycerine on every night if you didn’t have a little return now and then?

She went back to her seat at the end of the front row, and found that the dowager with the lorgnettes had not waited for the dancing; the seat was empty. But just before the lights went down — the hall was curtained and artificially lit — Rick appeared from behind and said: “If you are not keeping that seat for anyone, may I sit there?”

And as he sat down the first dancers appeared.

After the fourth or fifth item Lucy was conscious of a slow disappointment. Used to the technical standards of international ballet, she had not allowed in her mind for the inevitable amateurism of dancing in this milieu. In everything she had seen the students do so far they had been the best of their line in the business; professionals. But it was obviously not possible to give to other subjects the time and energy that they did and still reach a high standard as dancers. Dancing was a whole-time job.

What they did was good, but it was uninspired. On the best amateur level, or a little above. So far the programme had consisted of the national and period dances beloved of all dancing mistresses, and they had been performed with a conscientious accuracy that was admirable but not diverting. Perhaps the need for keeping their minds on the altered track took some of the spontaneity from their work. But on the whole Lucy thought that it was that neither training nor temperament was sufficient. Their audience too lacked spontaneity; the eagerness with which they had watched the gymnastics was lacking. Perhaps they had had too much tea; or perhaps it was that the cinema had brought to their remotest doors a standard of achievement that made them critical. Anyhow their applause was polite rather than enthusiastic.

A piece of Russian bravura roused them for a moment, and they waited hopefully for what might come next. The curtains parted to reveal Desterro, alone. Her arms raised above her head and one slim hip turned to the audience. She was wearing some sort of native dress from her own hemisphere, and the “spot” made the bright colours and the barbaric jewels glitter so that she looked like one of the brilliant birds from her Brazilian forests. Her little feet in their high-heeled shoes tapped impatiently under the full skirt. She began to dance; slowly, almost absent-mindedly, as if she were putting in time. Then it became evident that she was waiting for her lover and that he was late. What his lateness meant to her also became rapidly apparent. By this time the audience were sitting up. From some empty space she conjured a lover. One could almost see the hang-dog look on his swarthy face. She dealt with him: faithfully. By this time the audience were sitting on the edge of their seats. Then, having dealt with him, she began to show off to him; but did he not realise his luck in having a girl like her, a girl who had a waist, an eye, a hip, a mouth, an ankle, a total grace like hers? Was he a boor that he could not see? She therefore showed him; with a wit in every movement that brought smiles to every face in the audience. Lucy turned to look at them; in another minute they would be cooing. It was magic. By the time she began to relent and let her lover have a word in, they were her slaves. And when she walked away with that still invisible but undoubtedly subdued young man, they cheered like children at a Wild West matinée.

Watching her as she took her bow, Lucy remembered how The Nut Tart had chosen Leys because for the proper dancing schools “one must have a métier.”

“She was modest about her dancing after all,” she said aloud. “She could have been a professional.”

“I am glad she didn’t,” Rick said. “Coming here she has learned to love the English countryside. If she had trained in town she would have met only the international riff-raff that hang around ballet.”

And Lucy thought that he was probably right.

There was a distinct drop in temperature when the conscientious students reappeared to continue their numbers. Stewart had a Celtic verve that was refreshing, and Innes had grace and moments of fire, but the moment Desterro came among them even Lucy forgot Innes and all the others. Desterro was enchanting.

At the end she had an ovation all to herself.

And Miss Pym, catching the look on Rick’s face, felt a small pang.

It was not enough to have one’s hand kissed.

“Nobody told me that Desterro could dance like that,” she said to Miss Wragg as they went over to supper together when the guests had at last taken their departure with much starting up of engines and shouted goodbyes.

“Oh, she is Madame’s l............