Miss Deveen’s seeing her would not go for much in the matter of elucidation; it was Mr. James who must see her; and the plan by which he might do so was Miss Deveen’s own. She went down and arranged it with him, and before the night came, it was all cut and dried. He and she and I knew of it; not another soul in the world.
“You will have to help me in it a little, Johnny,” she said. “Be at hand to watch for Mr. James’s arrival, and bring him up to me.”
We saw them come back from the Drawing-room between five and six, Helen with a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and at eight o’clock we went in. London parties, which begin when you ought to be in your first sleep, are not understood by us country people, and eight was the hour named in the Whitneys’ invitations. Cattledon was screwed into a rich sea-green satin (somebody else’s once), with a water-lily in her thin hair; and Miss Deveen wore all her diamonds. Sir John, out of his element and frightfully disconsolate, stood against the wall, his spectacles lodged on his old red nose. The thing was not in his line. Miss Deveen went up to shake hands.
“Sir John, I am rather expecting a gentleman to call on me on business to-night,” she said; “and have left word for him to step in and see me here. Will you forgive the liberty?”
“I’m sure it’s no liberty; I shall be glad to welcome him,” replied Sir John, dismally. “There’ll not be much here but stupid boys and girls. We shall get no whist to-night. The plague only knows who invented balls.”
It was a little odd that, next to ourselves, Mrs. Hughes should be the first to arrive. She was very pale and pretty, and her husband was a slender, quiet, delicate man, looking like a finished gentleman. Miss Deveen followed them with her eyes as they went up to Lady Whitney.
“She does not look like it, does she, Johnny?” whispered Miss Deveen to me. No, I was quite sure she did not.
Sophie Chalk was in white, with ivy leaves in her spangled hair, the sweetest fairy to look at ever seen out of a moonlight ring. Helen, in her Court dress and pearls, looked plain beside her. They stood talking together, not noticing that I and Tod were in the recess behind. Most of the people had come then, and the music was tuning up. The rooms looked well; the flowers, scattered about, had come up from Whitney Hall. Helen called to her brother.
“We may as well begin dancing, William.”