"Jolly dress," Jack answered, looking unanalytically at something which he could only remember afterwards as being generally black—with bits of silver here and there—and little transparent triangular pendants hanging down from shoulder to elbow. "I hope you'll be able to come."
"I shan't be able to dance," she sighed. "Every time I turn my head—Oo! I did it then! It's like a red-hot needle at the back of the eyes...." She picked up her gloves and held out a hand, as the butler announced that the cars were at the door. "I'll say good-night and good-bye. I hope you'll enjoy yourself. And I hope I've not been too unutterably boring."
Jack felt her hand pulling gently against his.
"When I'm trying to persuade you to come on with us?" he asked.
Lady Barbara shut her eyes in a second spasm of pain.
"Do you really want me to?"
"If you're up to it."
"I will, if you want me to," she promised.
For many years longer than Jack could remember, the Croxton Ball had taken place in the vast and half-derelict "King's Arms," once famous, with its long coffee-room and unlimited stabling, as the best posting-house in the county and the beginning of the last stage for coaches running from the east and northeast coast through Oxford to South Wales and the west. Once a year the dingy grey-stone hotel, filling one side of the market-place, blazed with unaccustomed light; and the barrack of stables behind awoke to welcome the procession of tightly-packed cars that explored their way with long white fingers down the broad, uneven village street.
Jack changed his clothes and joined a shivering group by the fire in the Commercial Room. Lady Barbara was sitting apart, sniffing a bottle of salts and gently repelling those who tried to engage her for a dance.