“HE STARED AT ME REPROACHFULLY”
“Oh, indeed!” said the young gentleman, and stared again, and whispered to the young lady with the white shoulders, and the young lady whispered back. You cannot think how miserable I felt. They went away at last; but they, and my lie—a lie was a lie in those days—had ruined my haven. I slipped out as the music stopped, and instantly the young gentleman and the young lady got up from two chairs under a palm and sat down behind my screen, while—oh horror!—Gilbert’s green and questing length crossed and re-crossed the lighted swirling space on the other side of the draped doorway. I knew—who better?—whom he sought. I backed into the dark corner formed by the wall and the other side of the screen, too much occupied with Gilbert’s next move to attend to the murmurs on the other side of it. But the sitters-out were sensitive; or I, effacing myself as much as possible, must have pushed against the screen. Slowly, over the top, rose the head of the young gentleman. He stared down at me reproachfully and I, in a paralysis of embarrassment, stared up at him. You cannot think how tall the screen seemed, and how terrible the face of the young gentleman to the eyes of five. Nothing was said. How long he was prepared to stare at me I do not know, for his eye-glass was more than I could bear: at that moment even Gilbert was easier to face. I sidled back into the ballroom, worming my way as self-effacingly as possible in and out between mothers and empty chairs, till a familiar glitter caught my eye. It was my partner, my illegal partner, so soft, so rosy, so cosy, so blessedly harmless, so very much smaller than I. She was not pleased to see me (I realise now that I must have been as awful to her as Gilbert to me) but what did that matter? I grasped her hurriedly by a hand and a wing:
“One, two, three,” I prompted: and we put our feet into the second position. But fate was looking after the little girl in sparkles, not after me.
“My dance, I think.” Gilbert, cool, easy, adequate, even remembered to bow. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he said and he put out mole-skinny hands.
“I’m dancing with her,” I muttered. It was my last throw. But at that a new voice interposed:
“Oh, Mary, you mustn’t take the little girl away from her partner!” And the fairy queen, inexpressible relief in her eyes, pulled her hand out of mine and retired upon her mother.
I danced with Gilbert.
The last straw was hearing my Aunt Angela telling my mother, in the cab coming home, that it was pretty to see how the child had enjoyed herself.
Now I wonder how Annabel would have dealt with Gilbert? Her childhood is not my childhood. I read Pickwick at five, while Annabel is satisfied with Teddy Tail: that fancy-dress ball was my first party, while Annabel goes to dances twice a week. Annabel’s emotions could never have been in the least like mine. And yet, five years old in the eighteen-nineties is nearer five years old in the nineteen-twenties than five years old will ever be to a contemporary aunt. If I ask my nice Philip Collins to tea—such a handsome boy!—such good manners!—how am I to be certain that I am not inflicting a Gilbert upon Annabel? On the other hand, Annabel might have liked Gilbert. He was a popular person that evening: and Annabel has never kept moles.