“Our dance, I think, Miss Lane. I couldn’t find you anywhere”; it was Rory’s voice.
He led her into the drawing-room, and they began to move up and down, round and round, among the other solemn and concentrated couples, all engaged in too serious an exercise to indulge in any conversation beyond an occasional: “Sorry!” “Oh, _sorry_!”
When they passed Concha, she and Rory smiled at each other, and he said: “Telegrams: _Oysters_.”
That meant: “We are both rather hungry, but never mind, it won’t be long now till supper—Hurray!”
How humiliating it was to be so familiar with their jargon!
She looked at him; his eyes were stern, and fixed on some invisible point beyond her shoulder, his lips were slightly parted. She was no more to him than the compass with which Newton in Blake’s picture draws geometrical figures on the sand.
“It _has_ been a lovely dance—I do think it’s so awfully good of you all to have me down for Christmas.”
How many times exactly had she heard that during the last week? Once before to herself, twice to the Doña, once to her father, once to Jollypot.
“Oh, we liked having you. We generally have lots of people for Christmas.”
“Well, one couldn’t have a more Christmassy house. It always seems to me like the house one suddenly comes upon in a wood in a fairy story. One expects the door to be opened by a badger in livery.”
Again that bastard Fancy! The same sort of thing had occurred to her herself—_when_ she was a child; but the imagination of a man ought to be different from the fancy of a child.
“It’s the sort of house one can imagine a Barrie play happening in, don’t you think? Did you see _Dear Brutus_?”
“I didn’t like the girl much—what was her name? Margaret, wasn’t it? I’m sure her papa starved her—I longed to take her and give her a good square meal.” Pause.
She wondered what it would feel like to be the sort of young woman who could interest and allure him. And what were the qualities needed? It could not be brains, for she had plenty of brains; nor looks, for she was good-looking. But nothing about her stirred him; she knew it.
“Of course, it’s an extraordinary hard life, an actress’s,” he went on, “it’s a wonder that they keep their looks as they do. It’s a shame! Women seem handicapped all along the line,” and he looked at her expectantly, as if sure of her approval at last, “It can’t be much fun being a woman, unless one were a very beautiful one ... or a very clever one, of course,” he added hastily.