“Will we be friends, then?” she asked simply, out of the silence. She was like an earnest child.
“Please, Virginia.”
And she turned and left him swiftly, as was her way. Thus Virginia always left people and rooms, very suddenly and swiftly, as though she were moved to do so by a purpose that was almost mystic. For hers was not a languid queenliness; she walked always as though she were alone and unwatched and on a hidden quest—and, surely, any quest Virginia might follow would be a secret one, for Virginia was secret, she never confided. And she had such queerly little consciousness of her looks that you could take your fill of staring as she sat or walked, and not offend. You could admire the little fair face that topped the slim height of her figure with that quality peculiar to English loveliness. Her figure and face, you would say, are somehow compact of the same grace and clean lines, the one goes perfectly with the other, whereas a Frenchwoman’s figure can give the lie to her face even as her dressmaker can give the lie to her figure. And, as Virginia so swiftly passed, you could not but marvel at the slim elegance of her ankles, saying to yourself that Virginia had no visible means of support. But most of all you would admire the golden curls which tumbled, not wildly, down each side of her face, while the golden hair from which they tumbled was drawn tightly back from her forehead as though grudging itself the waves that insisted on waving. Those gay and golden curls of Virginia’s! the merry companions of her face! They were her main interest in her appearance; she took the rest of herself for granted, as far as any soignée woman can—but she cared for her curls rigorously, and as often as she was in her room she combed and curled them: ever so swiftly, with a very little comb and a very little “iron,” the treasures of her toilet table. Now these amazing curls on each side of Virginia’s face were named, and their names were mighty in London. They were called “Swan and Edgar,” and never referred to by herself or her familiars but as “Swan and Edgar.” The curls were both alike to the naked eye, in curliness, in sheen and in goldiness, but the curl on the right was Swan and the curl on the left was Edgar—“reading from right to left, you see,” explained Virginia; and he was no familiar of Virginia’s who ever confounded their exact locality. “Swan and Edgar” were a source of endless trouble and annoyance to Virginia: sometimes the damp would affect them, and they would look so limp! and sometimes, damp or no damp, they would be disorderly, just when Virginia was trying to look her best, and she would almost cry with mortification. No matter where she might be, no matter at what party, if “Swan and Edgar” did not behave themselves Virginia would insist on taking them home—“a car, please,” she’d say to a young man—where she would very swiftly curl them anew, with that very little “iron”; and then she would return to the party, gaily, mysteriously. And oh, she was such a pretty girl!...
And Ivor Marlay, walking slowly down the stairs—that “slowness” of a man at a party who might or might not be going home—thought of Virginia Tracy softly; he thought of Virginia in a whisper: how she had so abruptly stood before him and somehow revealed herself to him and somehow stripped him of his antagonism and affectation. Virginia, he thought, was mysteriously adequate to mysterious moments. And, suddenly, queerly, he was sorry for Virginia, alone in that galère—which he himself would never, never re-enter again. And he was sorry for Virginia....
And so, thinking of Virginia, he met Magdalen Gray.
3
She was borne to him, before he realised it, in the hubbub at the foot of the stairs, on the polished ship of Gerald Trevor’s introduction.
“He writes poetry and his mother makes birds’ nests”—that courtly gentleman was sketching an imaginary Ivor for her benefit.
“And he also dances,” grinned Ivor, responding to her secret smile—and plundering Trevor even as Trevor had plundered Rodney West.
Said Gerald Trevor to George Tarlyon, whom he met wandering downwards:—