"I think he"s dead sensible," said a calm voice at her elbow; and Scott Seagrave appeared, twirling his mask and blinking at them through his spectacles.
Duane laughed: "Of course I am, you old reptile-hunting, b.u.t.terfly-chasing antediluvian! But, come on; Byzantium is gorging its diamond-swathed girth yonder with salad and champagne; and I"m hungry, even if Kathleen isn"t----"
"I _am_!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Scott, can"t you find Nada and Geraldine? Duane and I will keep a table until you return----"
"I"ll find them," said Duane; and he walked off among the noisy, laughing groups, his progress greeted uproariously from table to table.
He found Nada and Bunbury Gray, and they at once departed for the rendezvous indicated.
"Geraldine was here a little while ago," said Gray, "but she walked to the lake with Jack Dysart. My, but she"s. .h.i.tting it up," he added admiringly.
"Hitting it up?" repeated Duane.
"For a girl who never does, I mean. I imagine that she"s a novice with champagne. Champagne and Geraldine make a very fetching combination, I can tell you."
"She took no more than I," observed Nada with a shrug; "one solitary gla.s.s. If a girl happens to be high strung and ventures to laugh a little, some wretched man is sure to misunderstand! Bunny, you"re a gadabout!"
She made her way out from the maze of tables, Bunny following, somewhat abashed; and Duane walked toward the sh.o.r.e, where dozens of lantern-hung canoes bobbed, and the pasteboard cylinders of Bengal fire had burned to smouldering sparks.
In the dim light he came on the people he was looking for, seated on the rocks. Dysart, at her feet, was speaking in an undertone; Geraldine, partly turned away from him, hands clasped around her knees, was staring steadily across the water.
Neither rose as he came up; Dysart merely became mute; Geraldine looked around with a start; her lips parted in a soundless, mechanical greeting, then the flush in her cheeks brightened; and as she rose, Dysart got onto his feet and stood silently facing the new arrival.
"I said after the third dance, you know," she observed with an a.s.sumed lightness that did not deceive him. And, as he made no answer, he saw the faint flicker of fright in her eyes and the lower lip quiver.
He said pleasantly, controlling his voice: "Isn"t this after the third dance? You are to be my partner for supper, I think."
"A long time after; and I"ve already sat at Belshazzar"s feast, thank you. I couldn"t very well starve waiting for you, could I?" And she forced a smile.
"Nevertheless, I must claim your promise," he said.
There was a silence; she stood for a moment gazing at nothing, with the same bright, fixed smile, then turned and glanced at Dysart. The glance was his dismissal and he knew it.
"If I must give you up," he said cheerfully, at his ease, "please p.r.o.nounce sentence."
"I am afraid you really must, Mr. Dysart."
There was another interval of constraint; then Dysart spoke. His self-possession was admirable, his words perfectly chosen, his exit in faultless taste.
They looked after him until he was lost to view in the throngs beyond, then the girl slowly reseated herself, eyes again fixed on the water, hands clasped tightly upon her knee, and Duane found a place at her elbow. So they began a duet of silence.
The little wavelets came dancing sh.o.r.eward out of the darkness, breaking with a thin, splashing sound against the shale at their feet. Somewhere in the night a restless heron croaked and croaked among the willows.
"Well, little girl?" he asked at last.
"Well?" she inquired, with a calmness that did not mislead him.
"I couldn"t come to you after the third dance," he said.
"Why?"
He evaded the question: "When I came back to the glade the dancing was already over; so I got Kathleen and Nada to save a table."
"Where had you been all the while?"
"If you really wish to know," he said pleasantly, "I was talking to Jack Dysart on some rather important matters. I did not realise how the time went."
She sat mute, head lowered, staring out across the dark water. Presently he laid one hand over hers, and she straightened up with a tiny shock, turned and looked him full in the eyes.
"I"ll tell you why you failed me--failed to keep the first appointment I ever asked of you. It was because you were so preoccupied with a mask in flame colour."
He thought a moment:
"Did you believe you saw me with somebody in a vermilion costume?"
"Yes; I did see you. It was too late for me to retire without attracting your attention. I was not a willing eavesdropper."
"Who was the girl you thought you saw me with?"
"Sylvia Quest. She unmasked. There is no mistake."
So he was obliged to lie, after all.
"It must have been Dysart you saw. His costume is very like mine, you know----"
"Does Jack Dysart stand for minutes holding Sylvia"s hands--and is she accustomed to place her hands on his shoulders, as though expecting to be kissed? And does he kiss her?"
So he had to lie again: "No, of course not," he said, smiling. "So it could not have been Dysart."
"There are only two costumes like yours and Mr. Dysart"s. Do you wish me to believe that Sylvia is common and depraved enough to put her arms around the neck of a man who is married?"
There was no other way: "No," he said, "Sylvia isn"t that sort, of course."
"It was either Mr. Dysart or you."
He said nothing.
"Then it _was_ you!" in hot contempt.
Still he said nothing.
"Was it?" with a break in her voice.
"Men can"t admit things of that kind," he managed to say.
The angry colour surged up to her cheeks, the angry tears started, but her quivering lips were not under command and she could only stare at him through the blur of grief, while her white hands clinched and relaxed, and her fast-beating heart seemed to be driving the very breath from her body.
"Geraldine, dear----"
"It wasn"t fair!" she broke out fiercely; "there is no honour in you--no loyalty! Oh, Duane! Duane! How could you--at the very moment we were nearer together than we had ever been! It isn"t jealousy that is crying out in me; it is nothing common or ign.o.ble in me that resents what you have done! It is the treachery of it! How _could_ you, Duane?"