His fingers halted over this, but in a moment he had found and secured the clasp.
"Good-night," he said.
The whole scene had lasted not more than a minute, and scarcely half-a-dozen people had seen her speaking to him, or knew who it was. Berts, who had just arrived, was one of these. Dodo turned to him.
"Ah, there you are, Berts," she said. "We are going to begin the cotillion exactly at twelve. Yes, poor dear Waldenech looked in, but he couldn't stop. You might remember not to tell Nadine. And why wasn't Edith here for dinner? Or isn't she staying here now? Now I come to think of it I haven't seen her all day."
"She left you yesterday," said Berts, "and I've just left her at home eating a chop and correcting proofs of a part-song. She was also singing. She's coming though, and says she will lead the cotillion with me, and she's sure you oughtn't to. She didn't say why."
Dodo went up to Jack.
"He went like a lamb, poor dear," she said, "though I thought for a moment he was going to stop like a lion. It gave me a little heart-ache, Jack, for, after all, you know— Now we are going twice round the ball-room. It isn't much of a heart-ache, it's only a little one, and I expect it will soon stop."
This, it may be expected, was the case, for certainly Dodo did not behave as if she had any kind of ache, however little, anywhere, and, whether she danced or sat still, was the sun and center of the brilliant scene. Wall-flowers raised their heads on her approach, and were galvanized into vitality. She ordained that there should be a waltz in which nobody should take part who was not over forty, led off herself with Lord Ayr, who had not had a wink of sleep all evening, and was far too much surprised to be capable of resistance, and convinced him that his dancing days were not nearly over yet. All manner of women who had hoped that nobody dreamed that they were more than thirty-five at the most followed her, reckless of the antiquity which they had publicly and irrevocably acknowledged, while Edith Arbuthnot, arriving in the middle of this and being quite unable to find a disengaged gentleman of suitable years, pirouetted up and down the room all by herself, until she clawed hold of Jack, who was taking the breathless Lady Ayr to get some strictly unalcoholic refreshment.
"I don't know how I came to do it," said this lady to Esther, as she drank her lemonade. "I haven't danced for years. Somehow I feel as if it was Lady Chesterford's fault. She has got into everybody's head, it seems to me. We're all behaving like boys and girls. Fancy Ayr dancing, too! Ayr, I saw you dancing."