It was a hot, close evening. Though only May, there was thunder in the air, people said. Despard’s inward dissatisfaction increased.
“Upon my soul it’s too bad,” he ejaculated while examining the flowers in his button-hole. “Why, when one’s made up one’s mind to do a disagreeable thing, should everything conspire to make it more odious than it need be, I wonder? I have really—more than half a mind—not to—”
Poor Gertrude Englewood, at that moment smilingly receiving her guests! She little knew how her great interest in the evening was trembling in the balance!
It was late when he arrived. Not that he had specially intended this. He cared too little about it to have considered whether he should be late or early, and, as he slowly made his way through the crowd at the doorway, he was conscious of but one wish—to get himself at once seen by his hostess, and then to make his escape as soon as possible. As to the first part of this little programme there was no difficulty. Scarcely did the first syllables of his name, “Mr Despard Norreys,” fall on the ear, before Mrs Englewood’s outstretched hand was in his, her pleasant face smiling up at him, her pleasant voice bidding him welcome. Yes, there was something difficult to resist about her; it was refreshing, somehow, and—there lay the secret—it brought back other days, when poor Jack’s big sister, Gertrude, had welcomed the orphan schoolboy just as heartily, and when he had glowed with pride and gratification at her notice of him.
Despard’s resigned, not to say sulky, expression cleared; it was no wonder Mrs Englewood’s old liking for him had suffered no diminution; he did show at his best with her.
“So pleased you’ve come, so good of you,” she was saying simply.
Her words made the young man feel vaguely ashamed of himself.
“Good of me!” he repeated, flushing a little, though the same or a much more fervent greeting from infinitely more exalted personages than Gertrude had often failed to disturb his composure. “No, indeed, very much the reverse. I’m sorry,” with a glance round, “to be so late, especially as—”
“No, no, you’re not to begin saying you can’t stay long, the very moment you’ve come. Listen, Despard,” and she drew him aside a little; “I want you to do something to please me to-night. I have a little friend here—a Miss Fforde—that I want you to be very good to. Poor little thing, she’s quite a stranger, knows nobody, never been out. But she’s a nice little thing. Will you ask her to dance? or—” for the shadow of a frown on her favourite’s forehead became evident even to Mrs Englewood’s partial eyes—“if you don’t care to dance, will you talk to her a little? Anything, you know, just to please her.”
Despard bowed. What else could he do? Gertrude slid her hand through his arm.