After one of these blanks she came face to face with him in the Lancers. He was romping as violently as the rest, charging down the room;—and as the chain of dancers burst it was his arm that kept her from falling into a bank of pale tulips against the wall.
"Wasn't the last dance ours?" he said. "I'm awfully sorry:—but you are getting on all right, aren't you? Plenty of substitutes? I've been watching them buzzing round you."
She smiled at him bravely. How like life this dancing was ... meeting and parting, and strange companions.... For the first and last time she was linking arms with Julia.
Later on she saw Rackham on his way to her. It was almost the first time that evening that she was unsurrounded. She had felt him watching her; awaiting his time to swoop. Barnaby had not been visible during the last two dances, and this, alas! was one that was glorified with a star.
"Yes," said Rackham, before she could speak, "I know;—you are dancing it with your husband."
There was no anger in his voice; only a kind of sardonic amusement, as if he could afford to forgive her for that rebuff. She looked vainly for Barnaby.
"As a matter of fact," said Rackham coolly, "he has delegated his privilege to me."
"I am tired," she said. It was true; very tired and forsaken.
"Then we'll sit it out," said Rackham, no whit abashed. He carried his point over her weariness; she wondered dully why she had been afraid of him, and she was too sad to struggle. She let him take her up the stairs into the far corner of the gallery, now deserted, and sat with her arms on the rail, gazing absently on the flitting brightness that mocked her wistful mood below.
All at once she started. Her wandering thoughts were fixed.