Consequences

Nevertheless, there were other balls when Alex did not go down to supper, sometimes because no one had asked her to do so.

She nearly always had partners, for she danced reasonably, though not superlatively, well, and introductions were still the fashion. But the number of her partners depended very largely upon the attentiveness of her hostess or of her hostess's daughters. Young men did not always claim dances from her, although they had been amongst her partners at the ball of the week before. Nor did many of them ask for two or three dances in one evening.

Lady Isabel had said, "Never more than three dances with the same man, Alex, at the very outside. It's such bad form to make yourself conspicuous with any one – your father would dislike it very much."

Alex bore the warning carefully in mind, and was naïvely surprised that no occasion for making practical application of it should occur. She was intensely anxious to be liked and admired, and she strangely confounded the two issues in her own mind. Attributes such as her clear skin, her exquisitely-kept hair, or her expensive frocks, she thought would promote interest in her amongst her fellow-creatures, and to the same end she simulated an enthusiasm – which was so entirely foreign to her real feelings that it lacked any semblance of body – for the crazes of her immediate generation, centred in Planchette and in the publication of Barabbas. She was full of preconceived ideas as to that which constituted attractiveness, and in her very ardour to realize the conventional ideal of the day failed entirely to attract. In intercourse with other girls, still in their first or second season, she slowly began to suspect the deficiencies in herself.

"I'm engaged for nearly every single valse at the Duchess's ball on Tuesday already!" a very young, childish-looking little creature exclaimed in Alex' hearing.

Alex was astounded. What could the little thing mean?

"Nearly all my last night's partners will be there, and they've all asked me for dances, and some for two or three," said the child with ingenuous pride.

Alex was frankly amazed. Lady Mollie was not particularly pretty, and her conversation was the veriest stream of prattle. Yet she was asked to reserve the favour of her dances three days or four days in advance, and the experience was evidently no new one to her, although she had only come out a few weeks earlier than Alex!

It was the same little Lady Mollie who gave Alex a further shock by demanding of her very seriously:

"Do you know a girl called Miss Torrance, a girl with very fair hair? She says she was at school with you."

"Queenie Torrance? Oh, yes!" said Alex, the old fervour rushing to her voice at the sudden memory of Queenie, who had left her letters unanswered – of whom she had heard nothing for two years.

"She's tremendously admired by some people," said Lady Mollie, shaking her head with a quaint air of sapience. "I know two or three who rave about her. Mother says she's rather inclined to be fast. I think people don't like her father very much, and he generally takes her about. You don't know them very well, do you?"

Alex hastily disclaimed any intimacy with Queenie's unpopular parent. She felt disloyal to Queenie for the eagerness with which she did so.

Two nights later, at one of the big evening receptions that Alex enjoyed least of any form of entertainment, Miss Torrance's name was again mentioned to her.

She was listening to the conversation of a brilliantly-good-looking young German Jew, whose name of Goldstein, already spoken with bated breath in financial circles, conveyed less to her inexperience than did the dark, glowing eyes, swarthy skin and the Semitic curve of his handsome nose. His voice was very slightly guttural, and he slurred his r's all but imperceptibly as he spoke.

She found that conversation with him was exceedingly easy, and translated the faint hint of servility in his deference, as did most women not of his own race, into sympathy with her utterances.

"You think so, you really think so?" he inquired gently, when she expressed a banale admiration for the prettiness of some girl whose entry, preceded by that of an insignificant couple, had made a slight stir round the huge open doorway of the reception-room.

"Yes," said Alex, emboldened by the interested look in the dark eyes which he kept upon her face, as though finding it more worth while to gaze upon her than upon the entering beauty.

"I have seen more beautiful faces than hers, nevertheless," he responded.

The eloquence of his look made Alex feel as though she had received a compliment, and she blushed. As though to cover her shyness, the young Jew went on speaking. "I wonder if you know Miss Torrance – Miss Queenie Torrance?"

She noticed that his throaty voice lingered over the syllables a little.

"She was my great friend at school."

"Indeed! What a delightful friendship for both, if I may say so. I think I may say that I, also, have the privilege of counting myself amongst the friends of Miss Torrance."

"I haven't seen her since she left school," said Alex wistfully. "I should like to see her."

"You spoke of beauty just now," said the young Jew deliberately. "To my mind Miss Torrance was the beauty of the season, when she came out last year."

She felt faintly surprised, but spoke hastily lest he should think her jealous, although he had carefully emphasized the date of Queenie's appearance into society.

"I heard only the other day how much she was admired."

Goldstein's dark face grew darker. "She is very much admired indeed," he said emphatically.

"Perhaps she will be here tonight," Alex suggested, thinking that she would like to see Queenie grown-up.

"She is not coming tonight," said Goldstein with calm assurance. "Are you going to the Duchess's ball on Tuesday? But I need not ask."

Alex felt unreasonably flattered at the homage implied, rather than expressed, in the tone, and replied in the affirmative.

"Then you will see Miss Torrance."

"Oh, I'm glad," said Alex. She felt rather elated at the success which her friend must have undoubtedly met with, to be so much admired, and she remembered with added resentment Lady Isabel's old inquiry: "Torrance – Torrance – who is Torrance?"

"Did you know that the girl I was at Liège with, Queenie Torrance, came out last year, and every one says she's lovely?" she demanded of her mother.

"I'd forgotten you were at school with her. I remember now," said Lady Isabel thoughtfully. "Who says she is lovely?"

"Oh, Lady Mollie and every one. That Mr. Goldstein I was talking to."

"Goldstein!" exclaimed her mother with infinite contempt. She was silent for a little while and then said, "I've heard about the Torrance girl. Men – of a sort – admire her very much indeed, but I should be sorry if you copied her style, Alex."

Alex felt more curious than ever. Blindly though she had adored Queenie, it had not occurred to her that she would be considered very pretty, and she wondered greatly concerning the development of her old playmate.

When she did see Queenie, at the Duchess's ball as Goldstein had predicted, Lady Isabel was not with her. Excess of fatigue had unwillingly constrained her to stay at home, while Sir Francis, bored but courteous, escorted his eldest daughter in her stead.

They arrived late, and stood for a few minutes in the doorway, watching the kaleidoscopic scene of colour and movement in the great illuminated ballroom.

Alex' attention was attracted by a group of men all gathered near the door, and prominent among them Goldstein, his eager, searching gaze fixed upon the broad stairway without, up and down which innumerable figures passed and re-passed. From the sudden lightning flash in his ardent black gaze, not less than from a sort of movement instantly communicated to the whole group, Alex guessed that he had focussed the object of his quest.

The announcement made at the head of the stairs was inaudible amid the crashing of dance music, but Alex recognized the entering couple in a flash.

Colonel Torrance, white-haired, with black moustache and eyebrows, upright and soldierly still, had changed less than Queenie. She looked much taller than Alex had imagined her, and her graceful outline was fuller, but she moved exquisitely.

Her very fair hair, at a time when every woman wore a curled fringe, was combed straight back from her rounded brow, leaving only the merest escaping curls at either temple, and gathered into the ultra-fashionable "jug-handle" knot on the top of her head. She wore a wreath of tiny blue forget-me-nots that deepened the tint of her grey-blue eyes, and the colour was repeated freely in the deep frills and ruchings of her white, décolletée dress, of an elaboration that Alex instinctively knew her mother would not have countenanced. Turquoises were twisted round the white, full column of her throat, and clasped her rounded arms.

Alex watched her eagerly.

Every man in the little waiting group was pressing round her, claiming first possession of her attention.

The faint, remotely smiling sweetness of Queenie's heart-shaped mouth recalled to Alex with extraordinary vividness the schoolgirl at the Liège convent.

Goldstein, his eyes flaming, stood demonstratively waiting, with insolent security in his bearing, while she dispensed her favours right and left, always with the same chilly, composed sweetness.

The music, which had ceased, broke into the lilt of the Blue Danube, and on the instant Goldstein imperiously approached Queenie. She swayed towards him, still smiling slightly, and they drifted into the throng of dancers. Alex turned round with a sort of gasp.

What must it feel like to be the heroine of a ballroom triumph, to know that a dozen men would count the evening worth while for the privilege of dancing once with her, that they would throng in the doorway to watch and wait for her coming?