“Lily, why are you so cold with me? Have you forgotten?”
“What?”
“Why, everything!” Michael gasped.
“You’re absolutely out of time now,” she said sternly.
They waltzed for a while in silence, and Michael felt like a midge spinning upon a dazzle.
“Do you remember when we met in Kensington Gardens?” he ventured. “I remember you had black pompons on your shoes then, and now you have pale blue pompons on your dress.”
She was not answering him.
“It’s funny you should still be living near me,” he went on. “I suppose you’re angry with me because I suddenly never saw you again. That was partly your mother’s fault.”
She looked at him in faint perplexity, swaying to the melody of the waltz. Michael thought he had blundered in betraying himself as so obviously lovestruck now. He must be seeming to her like that absurd and sentimental boy of five years ago. Perhaps she was despising him, for she could compare him with other men. Ejaculations of wonder at her beauty would no longer serve, with all the experience she might bring to mock them. She was smiling at him now, and the mask she wore made the smile seem a sneer. He grew so angry with her suddenly that almost he stopped in the swing of the dance to shake her.
“But it was much more your fault,” he said savagely. “Do you remember Drake?”