Grit Lawless Part 8

Mrs Lawless regarded the girl with critical interest. There was nothing especially remarkable about her in any way. She was young and fresh-looking, and wore a simple white frock, and a pearl necklace the beads of which were of a size to open up doubts as to their genuineness in an inquiring mind. Mrs Lawless did not question the pearls; she accepted them, as she accepted the peerless youth of the wearer, as parts of a whole the effect of which was pleasing.

She turned in response to a question of Van Bleit's as to what she would eat, and answered carelessly:

"Oh! anything."

He ordered for the three of them, and then sat back in his seat and surveyed the scene at his leisure. He saw Lawless at the table opposite with the girl he had danced with most of the evening; but he made no reference to him. He acknowledged the acquaintance before Mrs Lawless, but, remembering what Lawless had told him concerning her disapproval of himself, he never admitted intimacy for fear of prejudicing his cause.

Mrs Smythe, on the other hand, made no concealment of her liking for her friend's discredited kinsman. She did not often speak of him to Mrs Lawless, recognising that the subject was rather more painful than the ordinary family dispute, but nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to a.s.sist towards a reconciliation between them. With that end in view she had given Lawless an open invitation to her house, thinking that perhaps if occasionally brought together by chance they might eventually, if only for the sake of appearance, smooth over their differences and close the breach. Continued feud was the invariable result of an exaggerated sense of dignity on both sides, and it was old-fas.h.i.+oned. But Lawless very seldom availed himself of her kindness, and had managed his few visits so far when Mrs Lawless had not been present. She more than suspected design in this, and it helped to strengthen her belief that the estrangement had originated with him, and that he was responsible for its continuation.

"You don't like that chicken," Van Bleit remarked abruptly to Mrs Lawless, observing that she was only trifling with the food upon her plate. "Let me send it away and get you something else."

"Please, don't," she remonstrated. "I've already dined. I'm just keeping you in countenance."

"But that's rotten for you," he expostulated. "If I had really thought it would bore you, I wouldn't have brought you here. Drink some more champagne then, if you won't eat."

"I'm not in the least bored," she replied, flas.h.i.+ng a brilliant smile at him. "To eat is not my sole source of amus.e.m.e.nt. There is plenty to interest me here for an hour, if you are inclined to stay that time."

"I'm not," he returned. "I'm longing to try the floor. I've not danced yet... I've been waiting. You'll give me the first waltz after supper?"

She met his bold, eager gaze pensively, her splendid dreamy eyes expressing a slight hesitation.

"You know I don't care for dancing," she said.

"Yes, I know. But... just one waltz!" He leaned nearer to her. "You won't disappoint me? ... I have waited through the entire evening for this."

She smiled at the extravagance, but faintly, and looked away across the crowded room with its numberless small tables, and the gay, careless, laughing company that filled them.

"Oh! if you make so much of it!" she said.

Mrs Smythe, who was also gazing about her with more interest in the company than in the supper, here interposed with the irrelevant remark:

"I think Colonel Grey is the most distinguished-looking man I know."

Van Bleit grunted.

"Oh! I know you don't like him, Karl... It's obvious that the antipathy is mutual. But that doesn't make him any the less interesting from a woman's point of view. What do you think, Zoe?"

"I think he is exactly what you describe him."

Mrs Smythe looked at her in surprise. It was not the words, but the manner in which they were delivered, that arrested her attention.

"You don't like him either," she said.

Mrs Lawless smiled.

"_He_ doesn't like _me_," she corrected. "And though I find that att.i.tude interesting, it does not encourage affection on my side."

"Impossible!" Van Bleit exclaimed incredulously. "Dear lady, you must be mistaken. I haven't much of an opinion of him, but he can't be such an unappreciative hog."

The man referred to had risen, and, with his supper companion, now prepared to leave the room. They were not the first to make a move; the tables had thinned considerably since the entry of Van Bleit's party.

He paused for a second by Mrs Smythe's chair and spoke to her, and bowed to Mrs Lawless. He did not see Van Bleit. Neither did he see Lawless. When he pa.s.sed his table his head was turned towards his companion and he was deep in conversation with her.

Van Bleit watched him curiously, and the finely pointed ends of his moustache lifted slightly as the lips beneath it smiled.

"He rather overdoes it," he murmured.

"Overdoes what?" his cousin questioned.

Van Bleit looked at her. He had not, as a matter of fact, intended the remark to be heard.

"His diplomacy."

"You are pleased to be cryptic," Mrs Smythe returned.

He suddenly laughed.

"I must have made my meaning very obscure when you're not on it," he said. "I was merely criticising the fellow's habit of ignoring the people it doesn't suit him to see. But come... Shall we go? You are neither of you eating, and I don't care to feed alone."

Lawless rose when they did, and, with his partner on his arm, followed them to the ball-room. The band was playing an extra, a waltz. He pa.s.sed his arm around his companion's waist and joined the throng of dancers, whose numbers momentarily increased as the supper-room emptied itself of diners.

Van Bleit was waltzing with Mrs Lawless. He had persuaded her to try the floor when it was not so crowded; but before the dance was far advanced the room had filled surprisingly, and dancing became difficult.

A slight block occurred in one corner, and Van Bleit found himself held up temporarily with his partner, so closely wedged that he had much ado to keep the crowd from pressing on her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "When we get out of this we'll find a seat somewhere outside."

Mrs Lawless did not answer him. She was conscious of an arm pressing against her shoulder, pressing hard, and, looking up, met fully the keen grey piercing eyes of the man whom before that night she had not seen since the afternoon when he had called upon her at her house in Rondebosch. The arm, the shoulder of which pressed her shoulder, belonged to him. It encircled the girl who had sat beside him during supper, the girl in the white frock with the string of pearls about her neck. She leant against him, laughing, flushed, and happy, her eager eyes alight with excitement. It was all enjoyment to her; the crush with that strong arm to s.h.i.+eld her was part of the fun.

Mrs Lawless scarcely noticed the girl; she looked above her, and for a long moment gazed back into the sombre dominating eyes, the owner of which surveyed her as he might have surveyed a stranger, with an intense yet aloof curiosity. In the quiet, steady, concentrated look he bent upon her, and in his grave, unsmiling face, there was an amount of interest, even of admiration, but no outward sign of recognition. The initiative, Mrs Lawless realised, was with her. She smiled faintly, a smile that was half-diffident, half-wistful; and then suddenly the crowd swayed, parted, and moved forward again; and Van Bleit steered his partner between the revolving couples to the nearest exit.

"What a beastly squeeze," he said, when they emerged into the fresh air.

"I'm afraid you will blame me for letting you in for that."

Mrs Lawless sat down on a settee on the stoep. She was flushed and a little breathless; but it was not owing to the crush in the ball-room; she had been so well guarded that she had scarcely felt the inconvenience of the crowd. She looked at Van Bleit, and there was a gleam that was almost triumphant in her eyes.

"I'm not blaming you... As an experience, I enjoyed it," she said, and laughed.

She put up a hand to her shoulder. She could still feel the impression of a man's sleeve against her flesh. It had pressed hard. The man had stood like a rock, immovable and as firm; there had been no give in the shoulder that had, as it were, set itself against hers. In all probability, she decided, there was a red mark upon her arm. If Van Bleit had not been present she would have made an examination.

"I wish you would go and find me a wrap," she asked him suddenly. "I brought one with me. It isn't altogether wise to sit here without after getting so hot dancing."

And when he had gone she moved deliberately into the brighter light that streamed forth through the open doorway of the ball-room, and pulling her sleeve aside examined the arm. The mark she had expected to discover was there, a faint pink stain upon the whiteness of the soft flesh. She lowered the sleeve over it gently, and her face quivered.

And yet it was only a small matter that could not have caused her the least pain.

"I trust you were not hurt a while since?" a voice addressed her curtly from the doorway, and lifting her eyes for the second time that night, they encountered the keen gaze of the man who was responsible for the injury. She flushed quickly.

"No," she answered, and hesitated, confused and obviously nervous.

He stepped out on to the stoep.