"Well, what do you think of it?" said Lord Robert.
Drake"s wide eyes were ablaze, and his voice came in gusts.
"Think of it!" he said. "It"s wonderful! It"s glorious!"
Lord Robert"s gla.s.s had dropped from his eye, and he was laughing in his drawling way.
"What are you laughing at? Women like these are at least natural, and Nature can not be put on."
The mazurka had just finished, and the dancers were breaking into groups.
"Robert, tell me who is that girl over there--the one looking this way?
Is it your friend?"
Lord Robert readjusted his gla.s.s.
"The pretty dark girl with the pink-and-white cheeks, like a doll?"
"Yes; and the taller one beside her--all hair, and eyes, and bosom.
She"s looking across now. I"ve seen that girl before somewhere. Now, where have I seen her? Look at her--what fire, and life, and movement!
The dance is over, but she can"t keep her feet still."
"I see--I see. But let me introduce you to the matron and doctors first, and then----"
"I know now--I know where I"ve seen her! Be quick, Robert, be quick!"
Lord Robert laughed again in his tired drawl. He was finding it very amusing.
XI.
When Glory learned that all nurses eligible to attend the ball were to wear hospital uniform, being on day duty she decided to go to it. But then came John Storm"s protest against the company of Polly Love, and she felt half inclined to give it up. As often as she remembered his remonstrance she was disturbed, and once or twice when alone she shed tears of anger and vexation.
Meantime Polly was full of arrangements, and Glory found herself day by day carried along in the stream of preparation. When the night came the girls dressed in the same cubicle. Polly was prattling like a parrot, but Glory was silent and almost sad.
By help of the curling tongs and a candle Polly did up her dark hair into little knowing curls that went in and out on her temples and played hide-and-seek around the pretty sh.e.l.ls of her pink-and-white ears. Glory was slashing the comb through her golden-red hair by way of preliminary ploughing, when Polly cried: "Stop! Don"t touch it any more, for goodness" sake! It"s perfect! Look at yourself now."
Glory stood off from the looking gla.s.s and looked. "Am I really so nice?" she thought; and then she remembered John Storm again, and had half a mind to tear down her glorious curls and go straight away to bed.
She went to the ball instead, and, being there, she forgot all about her misgivings. The light, the colour, the brilliance, the perfume transported her to an enchanted world which she had never entered before. She could not control her delight in it. Everything surprised her, everything delighted her, everything amused her--she was the very soul of girlish joy. The dark-brown spot on her eye shone out with a coquettish light never seen in it until now, and the warble in her voice was like the music of a happy bird. Her high spirits were infectious--her lighthearted gaiety communicated itself to everybody.
The men who might not dance with her were smiling at the mere sight of the sunshine in her face, and it was even whispered about that the President of the College of Surgeons, who opened the ball, had said that her proper place was not there--a girl like that young Irish nurse would do honour to a higher a.s.sembly.
In that enchanted world of music and light and bright and happy faces Glory lost all sense of time; but two hours had pa.s.sed when Polly Love, whose eyes had turned again and again to the door, tugged at her sleeve and whispered: "They"ve come at last! There they are--there--directly opposite to us. Keep your next dance, dear. They"ll come across presently."
Glory looked where Polly had directed, and, seeing again the face she had seen in the window of the Foreign Office, something remote and elusive once more stirred in her memory. But it was gone in a moment, and she was back in that world of wonders, when a voice which she knew and yet did not know, like a voice that called to her as she was awakening out of a sleep, said:
"Glory, don"t you remember me? Have you forgotten me, Glory?"
It was her friend of the catechism cla.s.s--her companion of the adventure in the boat. Their hands met in a long hand-clasp with the gallop of feeling that is too swift for thought.
"Ah, I thought you would recognise me! How delightful!" said Drake.
"And you knew me again?" said Glory.
"Instantly--at first sight almost."
"Really! It"s strange, though. Such a long, long time--ten years at least! I must have changed since then."
"You have," said Drake; "you"ve changed very much."
"Indeed now! Am I really so much changed for all? I"ve grown older, of course."
"Oh, terribly older," said Drake.
"How wrong of me! But you have changed a good deal, too. You were only a boy in jackets then."
"And you were only a girl in short frocks."
They both laughed, and then Drake said, "I"m so glad we"ve changed together!"
"Are you?" said Glory.
"Why, yes," said Drake; "for if you had changed and I hadn"t----"
"But what nonsense we"re talking!" said Glory; and they both laughed again.
Then they told each other what had happened in that infinite cycle of time which had spun round since they parted. Glory had not much to narrate; her life had been empty. She had been in the Isle of Man all along, had come to London only recently, and was now a probationer-nurse at Martha"s Vineyard. Drake had gone to Harrow and thence to Oxford, and, being a man of artistic leanings, had wished to take up music, but his father had seen no career in it; so he had submitted--he had entered the subterranean catacombs of public life, and was secretary to one of the Ministers. All this he talked of lightly, as became a young man of the world to whom great things were of small account.
"Glory," said Polly, at her elbow, "the waltz is going to begin."
The band was preluding. Drake claimed the dance, and Glory was astonished to find that she had it free (she had kept it expressly).
When the waltz was over he gave her his arm and led her into the circular corridor to talk and to cool. His manners were perfect, and his voice, so soft and yet so manly, increased the charm. In pa.s.sing out of the hot dancing room she threw her handkerchief over her head, and, with the hand that was at liberty, held its ends under her chin. She wished him to look at her and see what change this had made; so she said, quite innocently:
"And now let me look at you again, sir!"
He recognised the dark-brown spot on her eye, and he could feel her arm through her thin print dress.
"You"ve told me a good deal," he said, "but you haven"t said a syllable about the most important thing of all."
"And pray what is that?" said she.
"How many times have you fallen in love since I saw you last?"
"Good gracious, what a question!" said Glory.