The dance was at its height when Gilbert entered the ball-room. He thought of Jack Iverson’s protest as the strains of the waltz from the Count of Luxembourg began to float over the room, played as only a Viennese orchestra can play it. Yet the strains were alluring to that part of him that was not the successful barrister, and his feet itched like any ordinary young man’s to be dancing. Claudia, of course, would be booked up—she was, as her brother had left unsaid, a beautiful dancer—and no matter who went short of partners, Claudia did not. She had been out a year, and rumour said that she had had a good many offers of marriage. An aunt, who was anxious to see her settled, had said, with annoyance, that Claudia must be waiting for a prince.
Gilbert caught sight of Jack Iverson dancing with a pretty débutante who was too plainly desirous of winning his approval. The only son, he was in the curious position of being wealthier than his own father, for an aunt, who had in the sixties married an immensely rich Jew, had recently died and left all her fortune to him. Why, heaven knows, unless she thought that the money would be put into quick circulation. This made young Iverson a very desirable parti in the matrimonial market, and mothers of budding and blooming daughters were extremely polite to him. But Jack Iverson’s taste did not lie in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair.
Gilbert waited about, but he could not see Claudia. He turned away, more disappointed than he would have owned, and there, under a big palm, tapping her fan impatiently on her knee, he saw her—alone.
“Claudia,” he said, going quickly up to her, “are you not dancing this?” He called all the Iverson family by their Christian names. He had known them in his early youth, when their country house had adjoined his father’s. When Claudia was ten, their house had been sold—it was too far from town—and it was only during the last few months that he had really renewed his acquaintance with the family. Lady Currey had been unfeignedly glad when the Iversons moved away.
Claudia jumped up, all animation. “You here! I thought you couldn’t afford the time for such frivolities.”
“I can’t really, but I’ve come for an hour. I wondered if there was a chance of getting a dance with you.” The music was humming in his ears, there was a heady odour from a group of lilies beside them, and—and Claudia was glad to see him. “I should not have come otherwise,” he added. He smiled at her, and though he used the smile very seldom, it was quite attractive.
She met his eyes squarely without the least bit of a flutter, but a faint flush rose to her smooth cheeks. “Well, come,” she said, putting her hand within his arm. “I am engaged for this—but my partner has kept me waiting. So he can lose the dance. A laggard dancer, like a laggard lover, deserves to lose his partner.”
“Blessings on his laggardism.”
“If I had been an Early Victorian maiden, I should have waited patiently, like a brown paper parcel, till he came to claim me.... Ah, well! You dance much better than he does. He dances like a pair of animated fire tongs.”
Some people dance, and others move their feet. Claudia would have inspired an elephant to tread coquettishly. She had the real spirit of the dance in her, and a magnetism that communicated itself to her partners, no matter how stodgy and how deep one foot was in the grave. An old colonel had once said—he was turned sixty, and out of pure good nature she had danced with him—that it was too dangerous to dance with Claudia Iverson. “I can’t afford to regret my youth so bitterly.” Circe had had a good deal of magnetism in her youth, but it had been purely animal. With Claudia it was a tantalizing blend of spirit and body.