She broke up the group by drawing Mrs. Shelley to a sofa with her and again looked cautiously round the room. This was the first time that she had dined out since her illness, almost the first time since the beginning of the war; and the light and noise, magnified by fancy and sensitive nerves, made her dizzy. Her mother and the doctor had tried to keep her at home; but natural obstinacy and uncontrollable whim had been too much for them. A few weeks ago she had fainted in the train, as she returned to London from Crawleigh Abbey; an unknown man had taken care of her, but, though she remembered his voice, she was too giddy to see or recall his face. On arriving at her father's house in Berkeley Square, she found her fingers grasping a silver flask with a monogram "E. L."; and that morning, when Lady Poynter invited her to dinner, she had divined that "E. L." must stand for Eric Lane. The coincidence would not have been worth following by itself, but in the latter days of her illness she had repeatedly dreamed of a child with the stranger's voice; and, vaguely and shamefacedly, Barbara believed that dreams had an influence on life and were glimpses beyond the veil of the unknown. She was coming to believe, too, in predestination as the one cause able to explain a long series of isolated acts for which she could not hold herself responsible; and to-night predestination would be put to the test, for half-a-dozen people had already invited her to meet Eric Lane and for one reason or another she had never been able to accept. It was the thought that she might be meeting him at last which had so taken away her composure that she had hardly been able to cross the room.
"I don't think it's worth waiting," muttered Lady Poynter, her indignation returning reinforced by hunger. "You might ring the bell, Max, and find whether any telephone message has been received——"
"It's Eric Lane," Mrs. Shelley explained. "Captain Gaymer was saying that he'd left London."
"Oh! I'm sorry. I've never met him," said Barbara.
Evidently she was predestined never to meet him; and the noise and light made her too giddy to decide whether she was relieved or disappointed. Predestination was winning another round; and, while she was ill and unresisting, it was comforting to feel that she was not responsible for all the follies and the one crime which had ruined her life; but it was sad to feel that she would never meet the hero of her dream-romance. He might have filled the whole of a life that for a year had been empty and aching; at the lowest computation, their meeting would have been an experiment in emotion.…
Lord Poynter had shambled flat-footedly half-way to the bell, when the door was thrown open again and the butler announced "Mr. Eric Lane." There was a tiny stir of interest among those who had not met him and of surprise among all. Eric's eyes narrowed for a moment under the light of the chandelier; then he collected himself, swiftly identified Lady Poynter and shook her hand with a murmur of apology for his lateness.
"But, dear man, we'd given you up!" she exclaimed. "Why did you frighten us by announcing in the papers that you'd left London? You've not met Max, have you?"
Eric shook hands with Lord Poynter.
"That was my s-secretary," he explained. Shyness was rushing in waves to his head, and he could only save himself from disgrace by pretending to be more icily collected than any one in the room. "I'm f-frightfully overworked at present with rehearsals and things, so I applied for a f-fortnight's leave from my department and everybody thinks I'm f-fishing in Scotland or doing a walking tour on Dartmoor. This party is my f-final dissipation, Lady Poynter."
He looked round to see with whom he had still to shake hands. As he began to speak, Barbara had shivered so violently that Mrs. Shelley turned at the movement; then she tried to remember even seeing his face as he bent over her in the train and carried her along the platform at Waterloo. She was paralyzed with dread of the moment when he would recognize her, for she had nothing adequate to the drama of their meeting.… He shook hands first with those nearest to him, and she hastened to make a mental picture before he saw that she was watching him; black hair, a thin face restless with vitality, bloodless lips tightly shut and eyes that were out of keeping with the assurance of the face—eyes unexpectedly big and soft, deep in colour and timid in expression, reminding her of the stammer and quick eagerness of his speech.