"They've sent him up with his wife," he retorted, and his mocking tone seemed to please her. She submitted and pressed his arm.
"Poor Barnaby!" she said. "It's an awful muddle."
She was looking very lovely and pathetic. The man who had once been entangled a little way in her toils himself and, having failed to succumb, was naturally inclined to despise her, admired her pose. It was hardly to be wondered at if Barnaby, who had been mad about her once, should be incapable of resisting the allurement of these dark eyes, so deep and so reproachful. He could not help speculating how far she was in earnest, and how far a hurt vanity inspired her. Curiosity piqued him.
"I understand," he said gravely, as they passed out and began to climb to the supper-room. It amused him to feel that her confidential attitude, her claim on his sympathy, was a subtle intimation that he had been the unlucky cause of the fatal misunderstanding, and must therefore be kind to her. All at once he had a perverse inclination to cast himself in the scale again. Why not? It would be a bitter joke on Barnaby, and it suited his savage humour.
"I like your dress," he said. His change of tone surprised her. She glanced at him swiftly, half-turning as she mounted, her green garments rippling as she lifted her train on one smooth arm, displaying a whirl of skirts and one little green sequin slipper. "Ah," she said, "down below they've been reviling me for a mermaid, and complaining bitterly of my tail."
"And so," said Rackham, "the little slipper is betrayed, to dispel the illusion?"
"Perhaps," said Julia. She used, at one time, to smile up in his face like that.... A vindictive sense of his power possessed him, flattering him on this night of defeat. In his heart he was still fiercely worshipping the pale girl who had flouted him, clinging obstinately—Oh, she was a fool, and so was Barnaby;—and the irony of it was that he had only to lift his finger—!
"We'll find a place by ourselves," he said, confidentially, passing into the room. Inside it he took a step or two, glancing about him. There were vacant seats on the right, but the tables had a battered air. Farther down, perhaps—; yes, farther down, near the wall. He turned back to look for his partner, and the sight of her face amazed him. With a promptitude that surprised himself he pulled her back, and got her outside the room. Was it possible that he had been mistaken in her, or could a woman push affectation as far as that?
She broke into a kind of gasping exclamation that was not intelligible at first, and he stared at her in limitless amazement.
"Oh, poor Barnaby, oh, poor Barnaby!" she repeated. There was a ring of triumph in her incoherent voice. She had gone mad, he fancied.