She had been hoping for some message all the evening, and Lesley realised how great a strain the waiting for news had been on Lady Arbuthnot's nerves when she saw the sudden relief the note brought with it.
Till then the Sunday dinner-party had been unusually dull. Now, just as people were beginning to wonder if they had not ordered their carriage to come a trifle late, a new life seemed to spring up. The hostess herself started music by going to the piano, and as she did so, she found time for a whisper to Lesley--'It's all right! The troops caught the up-mail and came back in it--sharp work, wasn't it? and George says everything is settling down, but I am not to expect him home till one or two. Oh! I feel so happy!'
She looked it, and--good singer as she was--she sang as few had ever heard her sing. Lesley for one, who listened to the quaint little French chansons, half-laughter half-tears, and the pretty, comic-opera trills and runs with a new perception of the woman who sang them--the woman who was, as a rule, so unlike most of her sex in her calm intelligence.
And now? Now every man in the room was crowding round the piano. She was holding them there by something that was not beauty or intelligence, not by her looks or her singing, but by the woman's desire to have and hold the admiration of her world by making it depend on her for pleasure--the desire which made Eve share her apple with Adam!
Yes! that was it! The woman's desire to have and to hold for herself alone.
But while the dinner-party at Government House had taken a fresh lease of life under Grace Arbuthnot's guidance, there was another dinner-party going on in Nushapore, where the good wine of high spirits had come first and the ditch-water of dulness last. This was at Mr. Lucanaster's; and it had been the probability of being late for this--a supreme effort on his part towards something preeminently jolly--which had made him sulky at being delayed by the 'memorable occasion.' For, to begin with, more time would be required for dressing than usual, since the party was to be a réchauffé of the Mutiny Lancers. It was to be a Mutiny dinner; and for the first time Mrs. Chris had consented to act as hostess and sit at the top of Mr. Lucanaster's table; Mrs. Chris in that bewildering costume of pink roses and white shoulders.
And everything had been perfect. The dinner worthy of a chef, the champagne iced enough to cool the tongue, not enough to lessen its sparkle. And yet, at eleven o'clock, the guests were beginning to leave. At half-past, Mrs. Chris--there was no mistake in her costume either--was eyeing Mr. Lucanaster with the amused superiority to the trivialities of sentiment or passion which--as she had always told poor Chris--made her absolutely capable of taking care of herself in any situation.
'No, thanks! I don't want another cigarette, and I'd rather not have a cherry-brandy before I go back; but you can tell the bearer to tell my ayah to bring my cloak and overshoes in here. I told her to come and wait.'
Mr. Lucanaster swore under his breath.
'Oh! I don't think it was quite so bad as that,' she continued cheerfully, ignoring the palpable cause of his annoyance. 'It really was quite jolly at first, and nothing could have been better done. It was that little fool Jones with his cock-and-bull story of a row in the city; and then the dresses, you know, made one a bit shivery, thinking of the Mutiny. It did--even me--and I'm not that sort. But you couldn't help that, you know--your part of it was perfect.'