"Well," said Lady Orange placidly, turning her surprised gaze on General Naniescu, "suppose you and M. de Kervoisin take us up to supper in the meanwhile. We'll capture Rosemary later, I promise you."
The party in the box broke up. The young people went downstairs to dance whilst the two foreigners gallantly escorted the elderly ladies up innumerable flights of stairs to a cold and cheerless upper story, where an exceedingly indigestible supper washed down with salad dressing and coloured soda-water was served to Pierrots, Marie Antoinettes, Indian squaws, and others who crowded round the tables and fought eagerly for unwashed forks and glasses of doubtful cleanliness.
The Five Arts' Ball was indeed a huge success.
[CHAPTER IV]
"Would you like anything?" Peter Blakeney asked of his partner while he steered her clear of the crowded dancing floor.
"I am rather thirsty," Rosemary replied, "but I could not stand that awful supper upstairs."
"Well, look here," he urged, "you slip into one of the empty boxes and I'll forage for you."
They found a box on the upper tier, the occupants of which had probably gone off to supper. Rosemary sat down and pulled the curtain forward; thus ensconced in a cosy corner of the box she drew a contented little sigh, glad to be in the dark and alone. Peter went to forage and she remained quite still, gazing—unseeing—on the moving crowd below. She was hot and felt rather breathless, her chestnut hair, below the velvet cap, clung against her forehead, and tiny beads of moisture appeared round the wings of her delicately modelled nose. The last dance had been intoxicating. Peter was a perfect dancer. Rosemary sighed again quite involuntarily: it was a little sigh of regret for those golden minutes that had gone by all too rapidly. Jasper, she reflected, would never make a dancer, but he would make a kind, considerate, always thoughtful husband. The kindest husband any woman could wish for.
Her eyes now sought the dancing floor more insistently. She had just become aware of Jasper's tall figure moving aimlessly amidst the crowd. Dear, kind Jasper! He was looking for her, of course. Always when she was not near him he was looking for her, if not physically and actually, then with his thoughts, trying to find her, to understand her, to guess at an unspoken wish.
"Dear, kind Jasper," Rosemary sighed and closed her eyes, in order to shut out that sudden glimpse she had just had of Jasper's anxious gaze scanning the crowd—in search of her. She pulled the curtain an inch or two further forward, pushed back her chair deeper into the shadow.