"How clever of you!" cried Rhoda. A slow and delicious smile drew her lips apart, and revealed teeth yet whiter. In the plump but beautifully-moulded cheeks appeared dimples. Rhoda was languorously arch. "I wish I was clever!"
"Have you seen me before?" demanded Edgar. He could not resist the attraction to her, and he was smiling responsively; but he was still puzzled, thinking her face so familiar and yet so unfamiliar.
"How gallant you are!" teased Rhoda. "Isn't this a good tune?"
"Were you here at a party about six weeks ago?"
Rhoda laughed outright. Patricia, at that moment passing, opened her eyes wide. She had not hitherto recognised Edgar as a wit, and she took a peculiar interest in Rhoda Flower, so that her observation in this instance was made the more alert.
His doubts resolved, Edgar was at ease with Rhoda. He now recognised her as the girl who had been with Harry Greenlees at the first party, and who had left in his company at the end of the evening. He remembered her air of attentiveness to the young man who smiled so broadly. It was pleasant to recall this picture, because it was related to his first sight of Patricia. He looked round for Harry, who, however, was not present. Nor could he see Blanche Tallentyre; but some of the other faces were those of guests at the earlier gathering. The majority were unknown to him, and while their spirits seemed to be good, Edgar thought the company as a whole was a little inclined to be rakish. He was glad to be dancing with Rhoda, who, apart from Patricia, was the freshest among the girls. The men struck him as a poor lot. Now that he was used to the band Edgar no longer found it deafening. He was only a moderately-good dancer, because although he had a good ear and sufficient physical elasticity he was not especially interested in the exercise; but he could tell that his partner was both accurate and enthusiastic. She moved beautifully, with complete absorption in the dance. Moreover, he found her impudent cheerfulness delightful. He would have preferred only one other companion; and it was to this other that his glance flew whenever she was near. The flying glimpse was all Edgar had for a long time, for Rhoda was busily engaged during intervals between dances in trying to learn something about him by means of adroit questioning, while Patricia herself seemed to be quite content with her partners and to be elated by their obvious admiration.
Edgar was happy in Patricia's presence. He did not feel any immediate need to speak to her, and he was in some curious way too shy to wrest her from these other men. But into his glances there came presently a slightly anxious gravity, for he noticed differences in her, wrought by the month during which he had been absent from London, and these differences were unwelcome. An eye less keen would not have discerned them: Edgar himself could not have said wherein they were shown. At last, when Rhoda was momentarily engaged with somebody else, he went across the room to Patricia's side.
iii
Even in her greeting he found Patricia changed, yet he was at the same time puzzled at his sense of the change. She was as unaffected as ever, and almost as fresh. Ah! almost—that was the difference he felt. It was a restlessness in her expression that made Edgar frown, a strain in the eyes, a small and perhaps momentary diminution in the bloom of her cheek. To another there would have seemed no change at all.