“I don’t think,” she said, faltering, “that I—wanted to find out anything. It was a very nice dance.”
“That’s what I say,”, said Dolff. “I don’t understand metaphysics. But it was not quite such a nice dance as I hoped,” he said once more, stooping over Janet’s chair.
It is probable that this last little speech was not intended to be heard, but there was a pause at this moment, and as a matter of fact it was audible enough. Mrs. Harwood and Gussy both looked towards the speaker, whose boyish face was a little flushed as he looked down upon the governess. It diverted their attention from the fact that there was something strange, not quite comprehensible, in what Meredith had said. They were not susceptible about the discoveries that could be made in their house; perhaps, Gussy thought, though his language was a little strange, that all he said was directed to herself, to impress upon her the communications of last night, and to make it more and more evident to her that, little as had been said then, he considered the evening a turning-point in his life. She was very willing to adopt this view. It flattered all her feelings, and confirmed her wishes. He was wrong, oh, very wrong, in that point of honor of his; but he was very anxious. And that, notwithstanding the visionary necessity that sealed his lips, she should fully understand him she threw herself into the discussion and led him on to the gossip of which he was a master, and which amused Mrs. Harwood. They took all the ladies and their toilets to pieces, and Meredith had various stories, funny and otherwise, to tell of the men.
In society of every kind the characters of the absent are often torn to pieces with no particular motive, or one which is half good, to divert the minds of the audience from more important things. The friends of the Harwoods suffered in this way, because the situation had become, nobody knew how, somewhat strained, and the conversation, no one could understand wherefore, uncomfortably significant—and this holocaust was offered up with the usual advantageous results.
CHAPTER XXXI.
It was certainly impossible that any communication could take place in words between Janet and Meredith on the evening above recorded. He squeezed her hand significantly indeed, and looked volumes at her from under his eyebrows—but looks, though they may express volumes of tenderness and sentiment, are not much to be relied upon as regards facts, and explanations cannot be given in them nor appointments made. Janet was accordingly more tantalized and excited than satisfied by these glances; and she found that when Meredith drew Gussy as usual to the piano, and the ordinary duet began, it was with feelings considerably changed that she regarded this pair, who the last time they performed together she had watched with a half-comic, satirical sense that the woman was much more deeply moved than the man, and a mischievous half pleasure in perceiving how he played with her.
But now Janet was conscious of other feelings; not all the confidential glances he could bestow upon her could keep her from feeling a keen pang as she watched the two together, the close approach of his head to hers, the caressing gesture with which he would bend over Gussy. She had smiled at all that before with a kittenish amusement, half guilty yet undisturbed by any pain, thinking if Gussy only knew what her lover’s looks said to the looker-on! But now Janet had ceased to be a looker-on. She was one of the players in the drama, the one secretly preferred, to whom all those sweetnesses were due. She felt a silent pang rise in her instead of the amusement. She was very angry, not sorry, for Gussy, the deluded, and angry beyond words with him. How did he dare to do it? What was his motive? If it was she, Janet, whom he loved, what was the use of keeping up this pretence and flattering Gussy with the vain imagination that she was the object of his thoughts?
It was a great change to have been made in a single night, and it altered Janet’s views of many things. She had no longer the feeling of superiority which her spectator position gave her, and from which she had despised Gussy for her easy subjugation and delusion, as well as pitied her. Now Gussy had become her enemy, stealing what belonged to her, since she could talk to him freely, go away with him into the background, where they were comparatively alone, and could say what they pleased to each other.
Thus the evening was full of torture to Janet. She began to pay the penalty. She could not endure Dolff, who came to her perpetually with some little remark or reference, and whom she repulsed with an impatience which took him entirely by surprise; nor Julia, whose retirement from the scene necessitated also the withdrawal of the governess. Julia was very tired after the dissipations of the previous night. She yawned “her head off,” as Dolff eloquently said; her eyes would not keep open.
“You had better go to bed, Ju,” said her mother; “you were up so late last night.”