“I’ll tell you how to take it—no, not now—— Look here—you’re not going next week, are you?”
“We must. Maud has to open up her town house and it’s getting cold for the children.”
“Let them go and stay yourself.”
“I must go to work, young man.”
“On that newspaper? Isn’t that all over?”
Her face clouded, but they were at the club and he could not go on.
It was a successful dinner. Maud found people all over the room whom she knew and whom, after her tea-party, she dared approach. She made inquiries about their plans—tentative advances towards a continuation of their society in the city, and was not rebuffed—to her great delight. Her table, with Anthony and Horatia, was rather noticeable and Maud, more than the absorbed young people, felt the looks and glances of men and women turning towards the lovely girl in yellow and the whispering about the situation which everyone suspected between her and young Wentworth.
Horatia had never been more radiant. The admiration in Anthony’s eyes was answered by the feeling in her own. She felt very young and handsome, part of all this high-bred color and gaiety. And Anthony felt that he had reached the climax of his courting and that at last the time was ripe. They rose from the table and swung into a dance in the open space in the middle of the room, alone on the floor for an instant. He was suddenly immensely conscious of the glances towards them and that the glances recognized Horatia as his. He drew her closer than he usually did. Her arm lay over his shoulder and her cheek was close to his own as they swung into each movement of the dance. The floor grew crowded and he held her protectingly now, guiding her against casual contact as if he was trying to express his desire to so guide her always. It was not an embrace and yet Horatia felt it as one, and was not as she usually was while she danced—aware of only music and rhythm; now she was aware of Anthony. There was a response in her unexpected to herself. She gave herself up to his leadership and this assumption of control. All the instincts which for generations have encouraged women to lean on men awoke in her and for those few moments she knew the joy which women have always had and will always have in being cared for, in having decisions made for them and their wills bent to the desires of others. Such instincts had never had any encouragement from Horatia. They were latent in the depths of a femininity which she never would willingly develop greatly, but instincts can live along without nourishment, yet now and then rise to the surface of a life with immense power.
The music stopped and he unwillingly released her.
“Horatia,” he said, his voice very soft and grave with emotion, “Horatia—sweetheart——”