The question as she uttered it struck me keenly. However I managed to reply in a purposely careless tone:
“In the library, I think, where they are practicing some new steps. Shall I take you to him?”
She shook her head, but accepted my arm after a show of hesitation quite unconscious I was sure. “No, I will go right up.”
Without further words I led her to the foot of the great staircase. As she withdrew her arm from mine she turned her face towards me. Its look of trouble smote sorely on my heart.
“Shall I go up with you?” I asked.
She shook her head as before, and with a strange wavering smile I found it hard to interpret, sped lightly upward.
A few minutes later I had located my missing partner and was dancing with seeming gayety; but almost lost my step as Edgar brushed by me with a girl whom I had not seen before on his arm. He was as pale as a man well could be who was not ill and though his lips wore a forced smile the girl was doing all the talking.
What was in the air? What would the next half hour bring to him—to me—to all of us?
I tried to do my duty by my partner, but it was not easy and I hardly think she carried away a very favorable impression of me. When released, I sought to hide myself behind a wall of flowering shrubs as near the foot of the stairs as possible. Much can be read from the human countenance, and if I could catch a glimpse of Orpha’s face as she rejoined her guests, some of my doubts might be confirmed or, as I secretly hoped, eliminated.
That Edgar had the same idea was soon apparent; for the first figure I saw approaching the stairs was his, and while he did not go up, he took his stand where he would be sure to see her the moment she became visible in the gallery.