Gloria shrugged her shoulders and did not reply. One could say anything to Gloria. She was never offended because people did not agree with her, nor did the opinions of other people change or influence her own actions or beliefs in any way.
Ruth did not try to talk any more. She was thinking of what Gloria had said about Terry. If Terry thought that she was interested in Pendragon—if she could have made a mistake like this—wasn’t it possible that she had made a mistake in thinking that Terry loved Gloria? Somehow since their adventure on the train together he had not seemed so inaccessible. Reason had told her that he was unattainable, but something stronger than reason had told another story. There had been an indefinable something different in his attitude toward her during the last few days—something like a prelude—something for which they were both waiting. Still, she must not deceive herself with false hopes. There were so many things for which she was waiting—things that would happen now she knew within a very few hours.
CHAPTER XVI
The other guests had come, so that there were twelve people around the Christmas Eve dinner table, among them Professor Pendragon, in whose quiet face Ruth thought she read some new resolve. Surely he must have some purpose in thus joining the others when he knew that tonight Gloria’s engagement to Prince Aglipogue would be announced, and when his illness would have made his absence seem quite plausible. He moved about so unobtrusively as to make his infirmity almost unnoticed, and now, seated beside Ruth, she found it difficult to believe that he was really paralysed. She talked to him of trivial things, ordinary dinner chat, or listened to the others, wondering within herself what secrets lay behind those smiling masks of triviality.
If Gloria and Pendragon, who had once been married, could meet thus as strangers, if she and Terry knowing their secret, or at least a part of it, could calmly pretend to the world that they did not know, might not all these other people have secrets, too—old memories that wine would not drown, meetings and partings whose pleasure or pain even time could not dim—immortal loves and hates still living, but sealed securely in coffins of conventionality?
Hundreds of candles flashed against dark walls, stained to a semblance of old age; bright scarlet holly berries nestled against their green waxen leaves, and dark, red roses shed their heavy perfume over everything. The dinner was being a great success, for there were no awkward lulls in conversation, and, while Ruth in her youth and innocence did not know it, Angela Peyton-Russell was blessed with an excellent cook, without whose services the faces of the men present would not have been so happy. Ruth did not even observe what she ate, but Prince Aglipogue, upon whose face sat heavy satisfaction, could have told to the smallest grain of condiment exactly what each dish contained.
Some one suggested that there were enough people to dance, and Angela, realizing the advantages of spontaneity in entertainment, eagerly acquiesced. They would dance for an hour or two after dinner and she would have her little “show” later; but the guests themselves would have to supply the music.
The Prince, who could be agreeable when he chose, immediately offered his services and his violin if Miss Gilchrist would accompany him with the piano.
It would all be just like an old-fashioned country dance, and “so delightfully Bohemian,” Angela thought. She was tremendously happy over the success of her Christmas party, and her husband was tremendously satisfied because of the success of his beautiful wife in the luxury of his beautiful home; but Ruth’s heart ached whenever she heard Gloria’s liquid laughter because there were tears in it, and in the steady fire of Professor Pendragon’s dark eyes she saw a flame more pitiful than the funeral pyre of a Sati.
He talked a little, very quietly of trivial things, sometimes to her, sometimes to the others, and Ruth took courage from his calmness. Only as the party grew more gay it seemed to her that under all the sparkle and the gaiety there was a silence louder than the noise, like the heavy hush that falls on nature before the thunder clap and the revealing flash have ushered in a storm. So strong was this sense of waiting that when their host stood with upraised glass, her hand instinctively went out and rested for a brief second on Professor Pendragon’s arm, as if she would shield him. Then she saw Terry looking at her, and remembering what Angela had said to her that afternoon, she quickly withdrew it. There had been no need to touch him, for Pendragon, like the others at the table, turned his attention to John Peyton-Russell, listening to his words as if they held no especial significance for him.