The Boy with Wings

by Berta Ruck

Then she thought, "Oh, if it's this one who's going to take me in to dinner, I am glad!"

It was he who was to take her in.

For Mr. Smith took the pretty lady whose name, as far as Gwenna was concerned, remained "Mrs. Rose-colour." Her husband, a neutral-tinted being, went in with Mrs. Smith. The man with the side-whisker (who, if he'd been thinner, certainly might have looked rather like the portrait of Chopin) laughed and chattered to Leslie as they went downstairs together. Gwenna, falling to the lot of the blue-eyed young man as a dinner-partner, altered her mind about her "gladness" almost before she came to her third spoonful of clear soup.

For it seemed as if this young man whose name she hadn't caught were not really "nice" after all! That is, of course, he wasn't "not nice." But he seemed stupid! Nothing in him! Nothing to say! Or else very absent-minded, which is just as bad as far as the other people at a party are concerned. Or worse, because it's rude.

Gwenna, taking in every detail of the pretty round table and the lights under the enormous parasol of a pink shade, approving the banked flowers, the silver, the glass, those delicious-looking chocolates in the filigree dishes, the tiny "Steinlen-kitten" menu-holders, Gwenna, dazed yet stimulated by the soft glitter in her eyes, the subdued buzz of talk in her ears, stole a glance at Leslie (who was looking her best and probably behaving her worst) and felt that every prospect was pleasing—except that of spending all this time beside that silent, stodgy young man.

"Perhaps he thinks it's me that's too silly to talk to. I knew Leslie'd made me look too young with this sash! Yes! indeed I look like some advertisement for Baby's Outfitting Department," thought Gwenna, vexed. "Or is it because he's the kind of young man that just sits and eats and never really sees or thinks about anything at all?"

Now, had she known it at the time, the thoughts of the blonde and blue-eyed youth beside her were, with certain modifications, something on these lines.

"Dash that stud! Dash the thing. This pin's going into the back of my neck directly. I know it is. That beastly stud must have gone through a crack in the boards.... I shall buy a bushel of 'em to-morrow. Why a man's such a fool as to depend upon one stud.... I know this pin's going into the back of my neck when I'm not thinking about it. I shall squawk blue murder and terrify 'em into fits.... What have we here?" (with a glance from those waking eyes at the menu). "Good. Smiths always do themselves thundering well.... Now, who are all these frocks? The Pink 'Un. That's a Mrs.... Damsel in the bright yellow lampshade affair about six foot high, that old Hugo's giving the glad eye to. Old Hugo weighs about a stone and a half too much. Does himself a lot too well. Revolting sight. I wonder if I can work the blood-is-thicker-than-water touch on him for a fiver afterwards?... This little girl I've got to talk to, this little thing with the neck and the curly hair. Pretty. Very pretty. Knocks the shine out of the others. I know if I turn my head to speak to her, though, that dashed pin will cut adrift and run into the back of my neck. Dash that stud. Here goes, though——"

And, stiffly and cautiously moving his head in a piece with his shoulders, he turned, remarking at last to Gwenna in a voice that, though deep-toned and boyish, was almost womanishly gentle, "You don't live in town, I suppose?"

The girl from that remote Welsh valley straightened her back a little. "Yes, I do live in town, indeed!" she returned a trifle defensively. "What made you think I lived in the country?"