Jack hid his disappointment under an adequate bow and accompanied her downstairs. Young Lancing's presence disquieted him. Though numberless men made rival calls on her, there had so far been no serious cause for jealousy; but Lancing had so much in his favour that Jack felt an insane desire to establish something discreditable against him. He was young, healthy, good-looking and highly gifted; Barbara had more than once quoted him as an authority on music; he was something of an archæologist; and his black-figure pottery at Aston Ripley was no less famous than his collection of eighteenth-century miniatures. He was worth between twenty and twenty-five million pounds, he was a baronet; and he was unmarried. Their tastes harmonized; every one would say that it was a most suitable alliance. And some would whisper that she had come very near to throwing herself away on Jack Waring. People ought not to be allowed to be so rich....
He strode bare-headed on to the pavement, feeling helpless and trying to persuade himself that he was only nervous. As they drove to Ross House, he watched and listened to Lancing and Barbara, envying them their ease and wondering whether it was fair for two people to exclude the third from conversation by choosing an impossible subject. Rimski-Korsakoff ... Ivan le Terrible ... Chaliapin.... While Barbara got rid of her cloak, he consciously tried to make friends with Lancing; they had apparently been at Eton together and had overlapped at Oxford. There was no harm in the fellow; though he was unutterably bored and made no attempt to hide it, he could not be dismissed as a conceited ass.... Barbara took an unconscionable time to shed one cloak.... And, when she returned to the hall, a newly arriving horde was already engulfing her.
"The first one's mine, isn't it?" Jack called out anxiously. "You promised it me in the car."
The anxiety was almost hysterical, and other people must be noticing it.
"Yes. And then Sir Deryk," answered Barbara. "Then Jack Summertown. Then Gerry. George?" She gave Oakleigh a quick smile over an undulating sea of heads and held up four fingers. "No, missing four! Jim? Missing five! What an appalling crowd! I don't see any prospect of supper."
"May I have that with you—after Jim Loring?" asked Jack. Then he lowered his voice. "I don't see much prospect of that talk with you."
The voice was peevish, and other people must be noticing that, too.
"My dear, you'll have enough of me this week-end. Take me upstairs before I'm trampled to death."
As they pressed forward to the door of the ball-room, Jack gripped the banisters to make sure that he was awake. At one moment he was staring at the broad shoulders of the man in front of him, the next down his collar; fluttering hands tidied away vagrant wisps of hair and buttoned gloves. Waves of scent met and blended with the dominant sweetness of the carnations which wound in clustering chains about the banisters. Above and before them boomed a far-away voice, announcing names; and between the shrill clatter of surprised recognitions came the strangulated music of a frantic band.
"You'll certainly be trampled to death, if you try to get inside," said Jack. "Let's sit it out somewhere."