To Margaret's dazed, shy eyes the room seemed full of young people, although as a matter of fact there were only one or two friends of the Danvers present, the rest of the group of young people being the Danvers themselves. Maud, of course, was still in the tweed skirt in which she had gone to the station, but the other girls were in pretty white evening frocks, and the bigger boys were in dinner jackets, and the smaller ones in Etons. Maud was perched on the edge of the billiard-table with one foot on the ground and the other swinging to and fro, and it was evident both from her pleased, self-conscious air and the fact that she was the only person in the room who was not clapping, that all the applause was meant for her.
"Yes, I have beaten him handsomely, Mumsy," she said, when at length Mrs. Danvers could make her voice heard. "It was a close thing though. Fancy Geoffrey was 193, and he must needs go and miss one of the easiest shots you ever saw, and then I ran out with a break of 22."
"Fancy that!" Mrs. Danvers said, turning to Margaret with a proud, beaming face. "Maud ran out with a break of 22."
Then a momentary silence fell in the room, and everybody present seemingly became aware for the first time that there was a stranger among them. She coloured up nervously, and then feeling it incumbent upon her to say something, for, or so at least it seemed to her, every one seemed waiting for her to speak, she stammered out nervously, addressing Maud:—
"I hope you did not hurt yourself."
"Hurt myself—how?" said Maud, in wide-eyed surprise.
"By running out and breaking yourself; or," becoming miserably aware, from the expressions on everybody's faces that she had said something incredibly foolish, "was it your stick that you broke?"
An audible titter ran round the room, and as Margaret stood there, the focus of all eyes, the titter changed to literal shouts and shrieks of laughter. The boys doubled themselves up into knots, the girls staggered helplessly about, and Mrs. Danvers just sank into the nearest chair and laughed until the tears ran down her face. The room fairly rang with their laughter, and in the middle of them all Margaret stood alone with crimson cheeks, and eyes to which the tears had begun to start.
But no one had the slightest pity for her cruel mortification; only now and then one or other of them would glance from her to Maud and go off into fresh shrieks.
At last Margaret could stand her position no longer, but crying out in a high, choking voice, that was plainly heard even above the din that prevailed: "Oh I hate you all! I hate you all!" she dashed from the room, and ran, still with the sound of their laughter behind her, down the passage which led to the billiard-room into the hall. Even at that distance she could hear the shouts and yells of laughter, which seemed to be increasing rather than diminishing, for if there was an unusual lull in the noise, some one would ask Maud if her run had broken her or her stick, and that would be sufficient to start them all off again.