“And I don’t think,” Lois added secretly, “that she will be altogether sorry at our going. Not so sorry as all that, I mean....”
Then they talked of other things, and Lord and Lady Lamorna left for Cannes immediately after lunch, in Virginia’s car. They were great car-borrowers, Lois and Johnny.
Virginia and Ivor were not alone that day, but he didn’t gather from her expression that she was in the least put out by her friend’s sudden departure. She seemed to enjoy her guests that day, and Ivor not less and not more than the others. And the day and evening passed in a crowd, to which the voice and person of Miss Gabriel were certainly vivid additions. Virginia was charming to her, and gayer than Ivor had ever seen her, except perhaps during those first moments of their sudden meeting in the lane by Lady Hall. It was a little difficult to imagine this easy and social Virginia, inattentive to anything for more than a minute, as the faint and wistful figure of the dark terrace a few hours before. Not that she glittered in the Lois way, but she was gaily promiscuous of her attention, she was a woman without preferences....
Tarlyon and Miss Gabriel disappeared for the latter part of the afternoon in the other car; and Ivor and Virginia spent the hour or so between Lois’s and Johnny’s departure and tea in walking with Mrs. Chester, who was rather silent, and Hugo Cypress, who thank God wasn’t, about the winding lanes that lead about the crest of Cimiez—what part of that crest is left uncovered by the mammoth luxury of the Hotel Regina.
The “dicers” stayed at home that evening—Tarlyon and Cypress had both won a packet at chemin de fer the night before, which was nice for them. Mrs. Chester did not dice, saying she had no unusual parlour-tricks. Dinner was therefore something of a festival. And later on they somehow fell to dancing to the gramophone in the wide drawing-room: which was apt for that purpose, for it had been fitted with a parquet floor by the luxurious forethought of Mr. James Michaelson of Lancaster Gate. A rather strange thing for Lady Tarlyon and her guests to do, thus to dance, for nowadays they only danced when they had to, considering that they had already danced enough to last them their lifetimes. (They adored Fancy Dress Balls, however—oh, let there be carnival, lovely carnival!) Tarlyon danced with Julie Gabriel, Major Cypress with Ann, Ivor with Virginia.
It was the first time Ivor had been alone with her that day; but when he looked down at her face while they danced it was masked by a smile. He noticed her mouth again, the taut mouth that looked as though it liked to be whipped by the wind.
“Well, Ivor?” she smiled at his look. They were dancing a very slow step—“Oh, very patrician,” cried, in passing, George Tarlyon, whose own dancing was not remarkable.
Ivor suddenly had a desire to force the smile from her face. He would have liked to take the smile from her face with a sweep of his hand, and put it in his breast-pocket, and suddenly give it back to her some other time. He liked her gravity, it was real, but he suddenly felt that this smile was unreal; she had worn it all day, with its variations, and he felt now that she had been unreal all day. Didn’t she know that she needn’t be unreal with him? She had seemed to know last night....
“Did you mind Lois going away—like that?”