These were good enough reasons for Mrs. Hading's decision that Druro, as well as Wankelo, should be impressed by the finished splendour and grace of her "little jolly." She intended to show him that, when it came to choosing a wife who could spend his thousands graciously and to the best effect, he could never do better than Marice Hading. To which end, she concentrated her whole mind on the purpose of making her entertainment a complete and conspicuous success.
A little group of those people whom she favoured with her intimacy were called into council, theoretically to help her with advice, though in practice she needed little of them but admiring applause. They met every morning in a corner of the lounge which, by introducing her own flowers, books, and cushions, she had made peculiarly hers. Here over morning tea the plans for her "jolly" were projected and perfected, and here were always to be found Berlie Hallett and her mother, Cora Lisle, Johnny Doran, Major Maturin, and one or two lesser but useful lights.
Druro, though he did little more than decorate the assembly with his good-tempered smile, was a most necessary feature of it, and Dick Tryon was more often than not to be found there also, though whether he came to scoff or bless, no one was quite certain. His position in the circle of Mrs. Hading's satellites had never been clearly defined. He was supposed by some people to be hopelessly in love with Gay Liscannon, and that supposition alone was enough to make Marice Hading anxious to attach him to her personal staff. Besides, he was an interesting man and a clever lawyer—always a useful combination in a friend. At any rate, he was one of those who helped to applaud the programme of Mrs. Hading's jolly, which she eventually decided was to take the form of a bridge tournament followed by supper and a dance.
This sounds a simple enough affair, but, under Mrs. Hading's treatment, it became rarefied. A chef for the supper had been commanded from Johannesburg, a string orchestra for the dance from Salisbury, and exquisite bridge prizes were being sent from a jeweller's at the Cape. The hotel dining-room was to be transformed into a salon for the card tournament, the lounge decorated as a ballroom, and an enormous marquee erected for the supper.
The day dawned at last when, all these arrangements being completed, there was nothing for the select council to do but congratulate each other on the prospect of a perfect evening. Druro, however, who had for some days been showing (to the initiated eyes of his male friends, at least) signs of restlessness, not to say boredom, marred the harmony of this propitious occasion by absenting himself, thereby causing the president of the meeting palpable inquietude and displeasure. She missed her laughing cavalier, as she had a fancy for calling him, from her retinue. Plainly distraite, she sat twisting her jewelled fingers and casting restless glances toward the door until certain emissaries, who had been sent forth, returned with the news that no one had seen Druro since eleven o'clock the night before, when he had gone off in a car with some mining men. The widow hid her annoyance under a pretty, petulant smile and the remark:
"He must be given a penance this afternoon." After which she abruptly dismissed the audience until tea-time.
When tea-time came, however, with its gathering in Mrs. Hallett's sitting-room (the lounge being in preparation for the evening's festivities), there was still no Druro. Further inquiry had elicited the fact that the men he had gone off with were from the Glendora. The Glendora was a mine owned by an Australian syndicate and run entirely by Australians, a hard-living, hard-drinking crowd, who, by reason of their somewhat notorious ways and also because none of them had wives, were left rather severely alone by the Wankelo community. One or two of the managers, however, belonged to the club, and it was with these that Druro had disappeared.
Mrs. Hading, whose petulance was not quite so pretty as in the morning, rather gathered than was told these things, and she saw very plainly that she had not gathered all there was to tell. Men have a curious way of standing back to back when women want to find out too much. But she did not need a great deal of enlightening, and when a man said with careless significance, "I expect he has forgotten all about tonight," and the other men's eyes went blank, she guessed what was at the bottom of it all. She had learned by now what were the occasions on which Druro so poignantly forgot, and she was furious, not because gambling might be bad for his bank account or his immortal soul, but that he should dare to have a more burning interest than herself.
"What about sending someone to remind him?" suggested Maturin. Marice
Hading regarded him coldly.
"He is engaged to open the ball with me this evening. I do not think he is likely to forget." There was more than a ring of arrogance in her tone, and, looking straight past him into the eyes of Gay Liscannon, she added acridly, "Whomsoever he may have thus distinguished in the past."