Mrs. Senter said yes, indeed, it was, she was never more surprised in her life, though really it would have been odd, when one came to think of it, if we hadn't met, since she and Dick were stopping with friends on Hayling Island, and were constantly in Southsea.
"Do let me write a note to my friend Captain Starlin, and get you all invitations to the _Thunderer_ dance to-night," she tacked on to the tail of her explanation.
"He's an old friend of mine, too," said Sir Lionel, "and we've not only invitations already, but have accepted them, and sent for my sister's and Miss Lethbridge's clothes."
Her face fell a little for an instant when she heard we'd sent for clothes, as probably Emily and I would have suited her better in our worst things; but she brightened up and said how pleased she was, because she and Dick were both going, and now they would really look forward to the dance; Dick had been bored with the idea before.
Well, the boxes came in good time, and the Bond Street darlings weren't crushed in the least, because I had put them to bed so nicely with sheets and pillows of tissue paper. I decided to wear a pink chiffon, with tiny button roses laid like a dainty frame all round the low neck and where the sleeves ought to have been but weren't. The chiffon's embroidered with roses to match. Can you imagine me in such a dream? I can't. But it suits me, rather. I wore pink shoes and stockings and gloves, all of the same shade, and poor Emily in gray silk, with her hair done in an aggressively virtuous way, looked like a cross between an Anglican nun and a tourist economizing luggage. Yet she wouldn't have been shocked if her brother'd had a harem in Bengal, because it was "good form." But of course, as she says, one is obliged to excuse things in men.
It was very amusing having dinner in the Captain's room, which was large and quite charming, with curtains and frilly silk cushions, and heaps of framed, signed photographs, and books, almost as if a woman had arranged it. But he told us one felt the motion there, more than anywhere else, in a storm; which must be some consolation to the "middies" who have to work for years before they can ever hope for such luxurious quarters.
Mrs. Senter and Dick weren't at dinner, which was one comfort. Besides ourselves, there were only the Captain's married sister, who had come from town for the dance, and her husband. The husband's an earl--Lord Knaresbrook; rather old; but Lady Knaresbrook is young, frightfully pretty, and knows it. She flirted fascinatingly at dinner with Sir Lionel; not as Mrs. Senter flirts, flickering her eyelashes, saying smart things as if to amuse him alone, and hang everyone else!--but just looking at him, with gorgeous, starry eyes; asking a question now and then, and listening with all her soul. I'm not sure it isn't an equally effective way, especially when done in a diamond tiara by a countess under twenty-five. I should quite have enjoyed watching it if Sir Lionel had been a stranger, but knowing him somehow made me feel 'pon honour not to look, and rather restless. I do believe that, compared with some of these men, who've been at the other end of the world for years doing important political things, Samson with his hair all cropped off was _adamant_ to Lovely Woman!
Naturally, I had to have something to look at, and I couldn't look at Lord Knaresbrook because the shape of his nose worried me; and anyhow he wanted to talk to Emily about people they both knew. Such exciting bits as this floated to my ears: "Ah, yes, _he_ was the great-grandson of Lord This. She married the Duke of That's second cousin." So I looked a good deal at Captain Starlin, and he looked at me and not at very much else, which was quite easy, the most important lady being his own sister, who took the place of hostess; so Mrs. Norton was on his right and I on his left. As he was our host, and evidently wanted to flirt a little, I thought it my duty to gratify his wish, and played up to him. That was quite right, wasn't it? I'm sure you'll say yes, as you are a Parisienne, and have brought me up to do unto others as I would be done by. But several times I happened to catch Sir Lionel's eyes, and they had a gloomy glint in them; not angry, but as if he'd discovered a screw loose in me. I felt as uncomfortable as you do with a smudge on your nose, which you see in shop-window mirrors when you've forgotten your handkerchief; but it was too late to change my behaviour suddenly, so I went on as I had begun.
We mere females didn't leave the men at the table, perhaps because there wasn't any place where it would have been proper for us to wander unmanned. We sat for hours, and Lady Knaresbrook smoked, and wanted us to smoke, though of course she must have known that no woman with her hair done like Emily's _would_. Emily looked shocked, but just pressed in her lips, and didn't disapprove out aloud, as she might if Lady Knaresbrook had been plain "Mrs." But afterward she told me she was now ready to believe "all they say" about Diana Knaresbrook. Just because she smoked! Mrs. Norton could find immorality in a hard-boiled egg if she looked for it.
At last we went above, or whatever you call it on a ship, and everything had been made beautiful with flags and bunting; but _nothing_ was as beautiful as those sailor men themselves, especially the middies. I felt like their mother (I hope that's not unmaidenly?) and should have loved to smooth their hair and pat them on the cheek--of which, by the way, they had plenty!
A good many were introduced to me; and Dick brought his aunt very early, because, he said, he didn't want to find all my dances gone. You can believe I hadn't saved any for _him_! But as a matter of fact, I had kept back two, thinking Sir Lionel might ask me; for after his many kindnesses I shouldn't have liked to seem not to want to dance with him, you see. When he didn't ask at first, I supposed it might be because he wasn't a dancing man (horrid expression!--sounds like a trained bear); but presently I saw him waltzing with Lady Knaresbrook; and he danced beautifully, as if he'd done nothing else all those years in Bengal. Then I said to myself: "He's vexed with me because he thinks I behaved badly at dinner, and perhaps I did." And I almost hoped he would suggest sitting out a dance, so that we could talk.
But then Dick came; and when he found I had two dances he wanted them both. "There are things I must tell you," he said. And mother, it's easy to see that the creature has some talent as a detective, because he guessed at once why I'd been saving those dances.
"It's no good keeping anything up your sleeve for Pendragon," said he, in his perky way, as if he were on an equality with the ex-Lieutenant-Governor of East Bengal. "He won't ask you to dance. He thinks you're a little girl, and is leaving you to little boys, like me, which is quite right. The only woman he's ever taken any interest in for the last fifteen years is Aunt Gwen. And you can't say he doesn't show good taste."
I couldn't, especially as Mrs. Senter was looking like the heroine of a novel which you'd be sure to forbid my reading; so I gave him the dances, partly for that reason and partly because I was cowardly enough to want to hear what he had to tell. Just at the moment he couldn't say more, though, because a sweet brown lamb of a middy came and whirled me away. So it went on for half the evening, until it was nearly time for Dick Burden's first dance, and I was sitting down to breathe (after a furious galop, which didn't go at all well with a Directoire dress), beside Mrs. Norton, who had the air of thinking a ballroom a sort of pound for lost souls.
Up came Sir Lionel as if to speak to her, and--I don't know what made me do it--I said, "I saved a dance for you, but you never asked me for it, so I gave it to someone else."
His face got red. Perhaps he thought I was lecturing him for being rude.
"Did you give it to Starlin?" he asked, bluntly.
"No. I've had mine with Captain Starlin. To Mr. Burden," said I.
"Do you want to dance it with him?"
"Not at all."
"Chuck him, then, and dance it with me. I should like to talk to you."
"That's what he said."
"Do you want to hear what he's got to say?"
(Well, you know, dear, I _had_ wanted to; but suddenly I felt as if Dick didn't matter more than a fly, nor did any one else except the person I was talking to. You _do_ feel like that with these quiet, masterful sort of people, whether you care for them or not. It's just a kind of momentary hypnotism; or, at least, that's the definition I've been giving myself.)
"I don't want to hear what he's got to say," my hypnotized Me answered, in the queer, abrupt way in which we had begun snapping out little short sentences to each other. "I'm sure he couldn't say anything really interesting."
"Don't you like Dick Burden?"
"Not much."
"Then the dance is mine. Which is it?"
"The next. Here he comes now. I see the top of his head, over the shoulder of that youth with the collar of a curate and the face of a convict."