After the actors had played the last charade, Leslie came and claimed her.
“Now, Madam — are you glad to have me back?”
“That I am,” she said. “Don’t leave me again, will you?”
“I won’t,” he replied, drawing her beside him. “I have left my handkerchief in the dining-room,” he continued; and they went out together.
Mother gave me permission for the men to smoke.
“You know,” said Marie to Tom, “I am surprised that a scientist should smoke. Isn’t it a waste of time?”
“Come and light me,” he said.
“Nay,” she replied, “let science light you.”
“Science does — Ah, but science is nothing without a girl to set it going — Yes — Come on — now, don’t burn my precious nose.”
“Poor George!” cried Alice. “Does he want a ministering angel?”
He was half lying in a big arm-chair.
“I do,” he replied. “Come on, be my box of soothing ointment. My matches are all loose.”
“I’ll strike it on my heel, eh? Now, rouse up, or I shall have to sit on your knee to reach you.”
“Poor dear — he shall be luxurious,” and the dauntless girl perched on his knee.
“What if I singe your whiskers — would you send an Armada? Aw — aw — pretty! — You do look sweet — doesn’t he suck prettily?”
“Do you envy me?” he asked, smiling whimsically. “Ra — ther!”
“Shame to debar you,” he said, almost with tenderness. “Smoke with me.”
He offered her the cigarette from his lips. She was surprised, and exceedingly excited by his tender tone. She took the cigarette.
“I’ll make a heifer — like Mrs Daws,” she said.
“Don’t call yourself a cow,” he said.
“Nasty thing — let me go,” she exclaimed.
“No — you fit me — don’t go,” he replied, holding her.
“Then you must have growed. Oh — what great hands — let go. Lettie, come and pinch him.”
“What’s the matter?” asked my sister.
“He won’t let me go.”
“He’ll be tired first,” Lettie answered.
Alice was released, but she did not move. She sat with wrinkled forehead trying his cigarette. She blew out little tiny whiffs of smoke, and thought about it; she sent a small puff down her nostrils, and rubbed her nose.
“It’s not as nice as it looks,” she said.
He laughed at her with masculine indulgence.
“Pretty boy,” she said, stroking his chin.
“Am I?” he murmured languidly.
“Cheek!” she cried, and she boxed his ears. Then “Oh, pore fing!” she said, and kissed him.
She turned round to wink at my mother and at Lettie. She found the latter sitting in the old position with Leslie, two in a chair. He was toying with her arm; holding it and stroking it.
“Isn’t it lovely?” he said, kissing the forearm, “so warm and yet so white. Io — it reminds one of Io.”
“Somebody else talking about heifers,” murmured Alice to George.
“Can you remember,” said Leslie, speaking low, “that man in Merimée who wanted to bite his wife and taste her blood?”
“I do,” said Lettie. “Have you a strain of wild beast too?”
“Perhaps,” he laughed. “I wish these folks had gone. Your hair is all loose in your neck — it looks lovely like that, though —”
Alice, the mocker, had unbuttoned the cuff of the thick wrist that lay idly on her knee, and had pushed his sleeve a little way.
“Ah!” she said. “What a pretty arm, brown as an over-baked loaf!”
He watched her smiling.
“Hard as a brick,” she added.
“Do you like it?” he drawled.
“No,” she said emphatically, in a tone that meant “yes”. “It makes me feel shivery.” He smiled again.
She superposed her tiny, pale, flower-like hands on his. He lay back looking at them curiously.
“Do you feel as if your hands were full of silver?” she asked almost wistfully, mocking.
“Better than that,” he replied gently.
“And your heart full of gold?” she mocked.
“Of hell!” he replied briefly.
Alice looked at him searchingly.
“And am I like a blue-bottle buzzing in your window to keep you company?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Good-bye,” she said, slipping down and leaving him. “Don’t go,” he said — but too late.
The irruption of Alice into the quiet, sentimental party was like taking a bright light into a sleeping hen-roost. Everybody jumped up and wanted to do something. They cried out for a dance.
“Emily — play a waltz — you won’t mind, will you, George? What! You don’t dance, Tom? Oh, Marie!”
“I don’t mind, Lettie,” protested Marie.
“Dance with me, Alice,” said George, smiling, “and Cyril will take Miss Tempest.”
“Glory! — come on — do or die!” said Alice.
We began to dance. I saw Lettie watching, and I looked round. George was waltzing with Alice, dancing passably, laughing at her remarks. Lettie was not listening to what her lover was saying to her; she was watching the laughing pair. At the end she went to George.
“Why!” she said, “you can —
“Did you think I couldn’t?” he said. “You are pledged for a minuet and a valeta with me — you remember?”
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. But —
“I went to Nottingham and learned.”
“Why — because? — Very well, Leslie, a mazurka. Will you play it, Emily — Yes, it is quite easy. Tom, you look quite happy talking to the Mater.”
We danced the mazurka with the same partners. He did it better than I expected — without much awkwardness — but stiffly. However, he moved quietly through the dance, laughing and talking abstractedly all the time with Alice.
Then Lettie cried a change of partners, and they took their valeta. There was a little triumph in his smile.
“Do you congratulate me?” he said.
“I am surprised,” she answered.
“So am I. But I congratulate myself.”
“Do you? Well, so do I.”
“Thanks! You’re beginning at last.”
“What?” she asked.
“To believe in me.”
“Don’t begin to talk again,” she