"Well, I'll come for one cigar, if Eric comes too. I'm an old man, George; I haven't been to a ball for ten years."
At eleven o'clock Oakleigh convoyed them securely into the drawing-room of Lady Knightrider's house in South Street. By the test of numbers the dance promised well, for the house was already crowded and Lady Barbara's relations were in full attendance. Her triumph was left incomplete by the absence of Webster, but he had been snubbed more than once in the last few months and was waiting for time to heal his reputation. She had spent the afternoon arguing with him until she felt her dignity compromised, and the embers of her ill-humour smouldered through the night.
By prearrangement Jack escaped to the smoking-room for a cigar, while Eric unbosomed himself of news which had been choking him for three days; Harry Manders had accepted a play, which was to be produced in the following autumn; after eight years of disappointment the daydream was being realized. They were still bandying congratulations and thanks, when the smoking-room was invaded by Deganway and a girl.
"Isn't that the famous Lady Barbara Neave?" Eric whispered.
Jack half turned and shook his head.
"Don't ask me. I'm shortly starring at the Halls as the one man in the world who doesn't know her and doesn't want to. I think it must be, all the same. Gerry seems to be getting called over the coals for something."
Lady Barbara's annoyance with Webster was spending itself on Deganway. There were long silences, broken by deferential squeaks of small-talk from him and restored by petulant rejoinders from her. She treated her companion with a contempt that was almost insolent and jumped restlessly to her feet, as the band began to tune up. Deganway hurried after her to the door, and the calm of the smoking room was only disturbed by half-heard music and the sound of high, rapid voices on the stairs. As his second cigar burnt low, Jack looked at his watch and beckoned Eric from his chair.
"Come and say good-bye; then you can drop me at the club," he suggested.
They steered a tortuous and apologetic course through the couples seated on the stairs and looked hopelessly for Lady Knightrider. In their absence the drawing-room had filled to overflowing, and the landings and balconies were packed to the limit of their capacity. As the next dance started, Deganway entered, blinking in the light, from one of the open French windows; Lady Barbara was still with him, but, as the music began, she was claimed and taken away.