“But, darling, I've told you already—'
“Look here, Violet!” he said forcibly. “Let's get things straight! I've no use for any of your conventions, and I never shall have. If you mean to marry me you'll have to accept that.”
He sounded a little dangerous, and she at once stopped trying to argue with him, and set herself to coax him out of his bitter mood. When they parted he had softened towards her, and she had said that perhaps she would go to the ball with him if he was so set on it. A quarrel was thus happily averted, but when at half-past six on the day of the ball she arrived at the studio, and said gently that really she didn't think she could go after all, because she had a bad headache, Kenneth looked her up and down for one minute, and then strode over to the telephone and called Leslie Rivers' number.
Violet said nothing, but stood looking out of the window while Kenneth arranged to call for Leslie to take her out to dinner at a quarter to eight. Apparently Leslie had no scruples about attending the ball in his company, and it was with a glint of triumph in his eyes that Kenneth glanced towards his fiancée as he put down the receiver. “Go home and nurse your headache, darling,” he said sweetly. “Or have you other plans? I'm sorry I can't spare the time to discuss them with you, but I'm going to have a bath and change.”
Antonia, who had entered the room at the beginning of this scene, and had been a silent but critical audience of the whole, watched him go out, and then looked at Violet with a certain amount of contempt. “Well, you've mucked that pretty successfully,” she observed. “I should have thought anyone with a grain of sense would have known better than to have tried to pull that trick on Kenneth.”
“Would you?” said Violet smoothly.
“I should. If you'd stuck to your original No he probably wouldn't have gone - not that I can see that it matters whether he goes or doesn't. But if you wanted to make him utterly pig-headed about the whole thing, you've gone the right way to work. I never thought you were such an ass. Help me to do up this frock for the lord's sake! Giles will be here by seven, and I've got a couple of letters I must write before I go.”
Giles arrived at seven o'clock to find her standing in the middle of the room with Violet kneeling on the floor at her feet, mending a tear in the hem of her chiffon frock.
Antonia said penitently: “Oh, Giles, I'm so sorry to be late, but I had to dash off two letters, and then I went and stuck my heel through this accursed skirt. I shan't be a minute.”
“If only you'd stand still!” begged Violet. “You've got some ink on your finger, too.”