The Gambler Part 77

His tone was eager.

"The first--at least," she said.

With a faint satisfied smile he turned and moved away.

Dinner that night was a very lively meal. Everybody seemed imbued with the spirit of the coming ball, and anxious to display a personal sense of antic.i.p.ation. After the company had risen from table, Clodagh and Nance met again in the hall by previous arrangement and retired to their rooms, that Simonetta might put some finis.h.i.+ng touches to their hair and dresses, and that they might get the bouquets they were to carry at the dance.

As they mounted the staircase side by side, Nance, after the custom of old days, slipped her arm through her sister's.

"Clo!" she said softly, "you are excited too! I can feel it!"

Clodagh smile a little.

"Well, it is my first dance!"

Nance halted and looked at her.

"Why, of course it is! And you must feel like I did the night of Mrs.

Estcoit's ball--the night----" She stopped, blus.h.i.+ng.

"Oh, darling," she added, "fancy my not realising that you had never been to a dance? It must feel lovely and strange to you!"

Clodagh drew her onward up the stairs.

"Yes; it does feel different from anything else. Of course, I shan't dance; but then people may ask me to--to sit out."

"_May?_ I wonder who _won't_ ask you!"

Nance's eyes spoke volumes, as they travelled from her sister's face to the long lines of her soft black dress.

Arrested by the look, Clodagh spoke again, abruptly and a little anxiously.

"Nance, why do you say that?"

"Say what?"

"That people would ask me for dances--that people would care?"

Again Nance paused and looked at her.

"I am nearly angry with you, for asking anything so silly," she said after a second's pause. "But I won't be. I'll forgive you. Though you know perfectly well that there isn't a man here who wouldn't sit out--or dance--or do anything in the world with you, from now till Doomsday."

She looked up laughingly; but, as she did so, her expression fell.

"Clo, you're angry?"

Clodagh patted the hand that lay upon her wrist.

"Angry, darling? No! Only thinking how wrong you are."

"Wrong?"

"Yes; I know one man who would not dance with me, even if--if I were to offer him a dance----"

She made the confession swiftly, in obedience to a sudden impulse.

Nance looked at her afresh in involuntary curiosity.

"Clo----"

But Clodagh raised her head, in a half-defiant return to reticence.

"Don't mind me!" she said. "After all, no one man should fill anybody's world, should he? Come along! It's half-past nine, and I hear the first carriages."

And without waiting for Nance to reply, she swept her down the corridor to the door of her bedroom.

The presence of Simonetta precluded the possibility of further confidences; and ten minutes later, as the sisters again emerged upon the corridor, the appearance of Lady Frances Hope from the door of her own room deprived Nance of the moment for which she had been waiting.

Seeing them, Lady Frances came forward smilingly.

"How charming!" she said. "A study in black and white! Where did those wonderful roses come from, Clodagh? They are nearly as dark as your dress."

Clodagh looked down at the damask roses in her hand.

"Yes. Aren't they nearly black?" she said easily. "I was saying to Lord Deerehurst the other day that there were no flowers one could wear in mourning. And to-day I found these in my room. He had wired for them to Ambleigh. It was very thoughtful of him."

Lady Frances gave an odd little smile.

"Very," she said. "I wonder if he meant them to be mourning. I believe there was a language of flowers when he was young."

She gave a short amused laugh and turned to Nance.

"And this is your first English dance, Miss a.s.shlin?"

Nance, whose eyes had been flas.h.i.+ng from one face to the other, gave a little start at being so suddenly addressed.

"Yes--yes; it is. I came out in America."

"Then you can tell us in the morning which men make the nicest partners, English or American."

Nance laughed. And Clodagh, with the new, protective instinct, put out her hand and drew her close to her.

"Nance has made her choice," she said impulsively. "The field is not open to Englishmen, But let us go downstairs! We are barely in time."

At the foot of the stairs, the three turned to the left and made their way to the ballroom through the throng of arriving guests.

Entering the long room, they moved slowly forward to where Lady Diana and her husband were receiving their guests.

Reaching Lady Diana's side, Clodagh felt her heart beat quicker, as she caught side of Gore's fair head and tall, straight figure. And a strange sense of repeated sensation surged about her. It might almost have been the night at the Palazzo Ugochini, when Lady Frances Hope had held her reception. Her hand felt a little unsteady as she laid it over Nance's; her voice sounded low and uncertain as she spoke her hostess's name.