"What about sending someone to remind him?" suggested Maturin. Marice Hading regarded him coldly.
"He is engaged to open the ball with me this evening. I do not think he is likely to forget." There was more than a ring of arrogance in her tone, and, looking straight past him into the eyes of Gay Liscannon, she added acridly, "Whomsoever he may have thus distinguished in the past."
Gay, who, by some mischance, had happened accidentally upon the meeting, was taken off her guard by this direct attack, as the ready flush in her cheek clearly told. A moment later, she was her pale, calm self. But Mrs. Hading saw that her arrow shot at a venture had drawn blood. She really knew nothing of Gay's quarrel with Druro, and her venture was based on a remark Berlie had let fall. But she was aware of a shadow between Gay and Druro that her sharp and curious eyes had never been able to penetrate, and that infuriated her. Tryon, lazily examining his shoes, here interposed a casual remark.
"I am willing to prophesy that what has happened once can happen again--in spite of William De Morgan."
"If I do not dance with Mr. Druro tonight, it will not be because he is absent," she said, with cold arrogance.
"_Nous verrons,_" he answered agreeably. She gave him an insolent look. He had declared sides at last, and she knew where she stood.
Gay dressed for the dance with but little enthusiasm. Pride made her put aside her longing to stay at home with her own wretchedness--pride and bitter curiosity, but, above all, a haunting fear of what the evening might bring forth. She had a strange premonition that something final and fatal was going to happen to her love for Druro. It was to be given its death-thrust, perhaps, by the announcement of an engagement between him and the widow. Surely, Marice Hading's significance had meant that if it had meant anything! This fete was to be the scene of her triumph. She meant to brandish Druro as a trophy--fastening him publicly to the wheels of her chariot. Strangely enough, what Gay dreaded still more was that Druro would not turn up at all. She felt a miserable foreboding about the gang at Glendora. And it was based on good grounds. They had once lured her brother Derry out to that camp, and what he had told her of his experiences there had left her with a wholesome dread and detestation of the Australians.