‘And yet Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot appears so charming, so thoroughly reliable.’
Seeing her Rosie joyously dancing in the distance, Mrs. Verschoyle’s motherly heart was disposed towards optimism on most points.
‘Has a word been uttered against the reliability of any member of the Arbuthnot family?’
The question was an innocent one. And still did something in its tone, something in the added blankness of Mrs. Corbie’s smoke-coloured gaze, seem to reduce the character of each of the Arbuthnot trio to a ghostly possibility.
Marjorie and her partner floated past the window at this juncture.
‘Give us one more round, Miss Tighe,’ cried Oscar, in breathless staccato. ‘Never danced to such a splendid tune in my life!’ Cassandra was labouring, hot with her exertions, through ‘Strauss’s First Set,’ ‘Les Hirondelles,’ or some other long buried favourite of her youth. ‘Capital turf, capital music, a first-rate partner! If a dance like this,’ he proceeded, ‘could only last for ever, Miss Bartrand!’
‘Thank Heaven it draws to an end,’ said Marjorie, in a voice of steel.
A hundred yards distant, across velvet lawns and beds of flower bloom, she could discern the figure of Geoffrey Arbuthnot. He walked away, firm of tread, erect of head, from the acres of Tintajeux and from her. And her partner’s arm clasped her waist, her steps twirled lightly. She was hostess of the party, must go through other dances, must entertain the Seigneur’s guests to the end.
From this time forth Marjorie knew that she could never more feel as a girl feels, never enjoy with a girl’s enjoyment. She would be a woman, with the bitter taste of grown-up life in her mouth, from this hour onward till she died.