Meanwhile, all was going on merrily below, dance succeeding dance. The music was good, the floor was good. “Dolff’s men” had fully made up the number of partners necessary, and left a few over to support the doorway lest it should fall. Dolff himself, in the midst of the gay crowd which had been collected to give him pleasure, wandered about distractedly, seeking Janet, but unable to find her, and teasing Gussy, who had certainly enough to worry her without his constant questions, by demands where Janet was. Gussy had plenty of her own affairs on hand. The hours were passing—those hours which she had felt to be so full of fate—and nothing was happening; and her heart was sore with unfulfilled expectations. To think that while her mind was thus torn asunder, while she was almost unconsciously, but with the keenest anxiety, watching for one figure in the crowd, yet carrying on the necessary conversations, listening to what{157} ever nonsense might be said to her, laughing at the smallest jokes, presenting generally the aspect to all around her of a disengaged and cheerful spirit, while suffering an endless torture of suspense—to think that then Dolff should assail her with his questions:
“Where is Miss Summerhayes? Have you seen Miss Summerhayes? This is our dance. Where has she disappeared to? What has become of her? Gussy, have you seen Miss Summerhayes?”
Gussy tried to push off her brother’s inquiries with trifling answers, but finally found that this last straw of provocation was more than she could bear.
“I am not Janet’s keeper,” she said, with angry impatience. “You had better attend to your guests, Dolff, and let Miss Summerhayes look after herself.”
“By Jove!” said Dolff, who was almost as exasperated as she, “I knew you were selfish, Gussy, but never so bad as that.”
They glared at each other for a moment, both at the end of their patience, distracted, abandoned, left to themselves. It was a kind of relief thus to snarl at each other, to let out their offence and trouble, persuading themselves each that the intolerableness of the other was the cause. But Gussy’s case was by far the harder of the two. Janet had given Dolff no right to resent her absence—but the other—the other! It did poor Gussy good for a moment to be able to be angry with Dolff.
When Meredith came to her for the third dance she had given him, the two first of which he had danced conscientiously all through without a word that could not be breathed in the course of the twistings and whirling, Gussy declared she was too tired to dance any more.
“Then let us sit it out together,” he said; “there is a nice corner I know where we may be as private as if we were all alone, yet see everybody—if you wish to see everybody. I think it must have been arranged expressly for you and me there are two such comfortable chairs.”
“You have put that corner to use before,” said Gussy.
“Several times,” he answered, promptly; “one must do something with one’s partner if, for example, she doesn’t dance well, or there is any other drawback. I have been conducting myself more or less like the son of the house to-night. You may think me presumptuous to say so, but I think, after Dolff, I have almost the best right to look after your guests, Gussy, and see that it goes off well. Do you allow my claim?{158}”
In that dark corner which he had occupied a little before with Janet it was not possible to see the warm blush, like a fresh tide of life, which came over Gussy’s face; but something of that warm, sweet flood of consciousness could be made out in the melting of her voice.
“Oh, yes,” she said, with a happy tremor, “you have known us longer than any one here—almost all your life.”
“All our lives,” said Meredith, with a little emphasis on the pronoun. “I can’t remember the time when we didn’t know each other, can you, Gussy? There is nothing else can come so near as that. And I have been taking it upon me to entertain your guests as if they were my own.”
“Thank you very much for that, Charley.”
“Oh no, you need not thank me. You will do as much or more for me when the time comes—when I shall have guests of my own. But I am not well enough off to think of that yet. A little patience and then my turn will come.”
“I thought,” said Gussy, “you were telling mamma the other night——”
“Oh, that I have made a beginning. Yes, I have made a beginning; and you may be sure it will not be my fault if it does not go on: a year perhaps, or so, and I shall feel that I am justified—ah, Gussy, I wish that time was come.”
“You must not insist on too much,” said Gussy, softly; “to begin is the great matter.”
“So it is; but I must have the means to get a nice house and everything suitable before—— When it comes to having guests, you know, there must be something to give them, and—better things even than that. Ah, me! waiting is slow work.” Gussy echoed the sigh from the bottom of her heart. “But I hope there’s a good time coming,” continued Meredith, with a smile, putting his hand upon Gussy’s, and giving it a warm pressure.
He looked many things which he did not say, and poor Gussy sat in a sort of trance of mortified happiness, feeling herself put back, checked, as if it were she who was over-eager and impatient, yet so assured of his tenderness, so moved by the high-mindedness of his determination to have everything worthy of her before he should ask her to share his fate, that her heart melted within her in answering tenderness and consent. No, she would never, could never doubt him more. His hand laid upon her hand was not enough for the response she was so ready to give: but he knew and trusted her, as she felt she ought always to have known and trusted him. And there was a moment’s silence, to Gussy more elo{159}quent than any words; a sort of noiseless betrothal, binding them to each other till the time for full disclosure and explanation should come. He stooped down at last and kissed her hand as if his feelings were getting too much for him, and then broke into remarks upon the dancers, who were once more streaming out into the cooler space at the end of the waltz. He called her attention to two or three, and made her laugh. She felt no longer any difficulty in being amused.
“But I am afraid I must go soon,” she said; “I am engaged for the next dance.”
“Sit close,” said Meredith, “and the man will never find you. Dolff’s men are all as blind as bats. They know nobody, and they go prowling round trying to recognize some girl they have only seen for a moment. There is one who has begun his round already, peering at everybody. I hope he is not your man?”
“Perhaps he is,” said Gussy, drawing further back; “I don’t know him any more than he knows me.”
“Then you had far better stop with one who does know you, and—something more,” said Meredith. “There! he has passed and you are safe. Ah, so here is old Vicars again! Where does he always appear from, whenever you want him, that old man?”
“He appears—from where he lives, Charley. You know mamma lets him have the coachman’s room in the wing.”
“That wing has always seemed a most mysterious place to me. How do you get into it? Do you strike upon a trap-door, and does he start up through it like a jack-in-the-box?”
“Nonsense,” said Gussy. “There is a door at the back, as I am sure you must have seen.”
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