'No, I do not think it is,' she says, half sotto voce, as she passes on.
At the first look, the room, superb as are its proportions, seems already full; but a closer inspection reveals at the upper end several still vacant rows of arm-chairs, reserved by the host and hostess for those among their guests whom they most delight to honour. To this favoured category belongs milady, and she is presently installed with her two young friends by a sémillant papa Hartley, in the very middle of the front rank. For the present, nothing can be easier than for Prue to keep the chair at her side vacant. She has already anxiously and surreptitiously spread her white frock over it. Each of earth's glories has probably its attendant disadvantages; a warm and consoling doctrine for those to whose share not much of life's gilding falls; nor is a seat in the front row of synagogue or playhouse any exception to this rule. It has the inevitable drawback, that except by an uncomfortable contortion of the neck-muscles, it is impossible for its occupants to see what is going on in the body of the room; and the view of foot-lights and a drop-scene is one that after a while is apt to pall.
Prue's head is continually turning over her shoulder, as, from the body of the long hall, all blazing with pink-shaded electric lamps, comes the noise of gowns rustling, of steps and voices, as people settle into their seats. At first she had had no cause for uneasiness. The people, as they tide in, conscious of no particular claim to chief places, pack themselves, with laughs and greetings to acquaintances, into the unreserved seats. But presently Mr. Hartley is seen convoying a party of ladies and men to the top of the room with the same evidences of deferential tenderness as he had shown to milady; and no sooner are they disposed of, according to their merits, than he reappears with the same smile, and a new batch. This continues to happen until the human tide, like its prototype in its inexorable march over swallowed sands and drunk rocks, has advanced, despite the piteous protest in Prue's eyes, to within three chairs of her. Yes, including that one so imperfectly veiled by the poor child's skirt, there are only three vacant seats remaining.
'Oh, I wish he would come! Oh, I wish he would come!' she repeats, with something that grows ever nearer and nearer to a sob in her voice. 'Oh, Peggy, do you think he will not come after all? You are longer-sighted than I am; do look if you can see him anywhere! Oh, I wish he would come! I shall not be able to keep this chair for him much longer, and then——'
Her words are prophetic. Scarcely are they out of her mouth before the vision of the radiant host is again seen nearing them, with a fresh freight—a freight that rustles and jingles and chatters louder than any of the previous ones.
'Oh yes, do put me in a good place!' a high and apparently extravagantly cheerful voice is heard exclaiming; 'I always like the best places if I can get them—do not you? and I mean to applaud more loudly than anybody. I have been engaged by Freddy Ducane as a claque; and I assure you I mean to keep my word.'
Although she has been expecting it—although she has told herself that to hear it is among the most probable of the evening's chances, yet, at the sound of that clear thin voice, Peggy turns extremely cold. It has come then. In a second she will certainly be called upon to hear another voice. Let her then brace herself to bear it decently. Her hands clasp themselves involuntarily, and she draws in her breath; but she cannot lift her eyes. She sits looking straight before her, waiting. But instead of the tones that with such sick dread she is expecting, she hears only milady's voice—milady's voice not in its suavest key.
'Oh! it is you, is it? How many of you are there?—because we are pretty full here; and I suppose you do not mean to sit upon our knees.'
'There is nothing I should like better!' cries Lady Betty friskily. 'You are looking perfectly delightful to-night; all the more so because your fender is quite on one side. Come now, do not be ill-natured, but make room for me; you know I am not very——'
Peggy hears the voice break off abruptly; and involuntarily her eyes, hitherto glued to the back of the chair in front of her, snatch a hasty glance in Lady Betty's direction. She has turned away, and is addressing Mr. Hartley in an altered and hurried key.