Chapter 21

AFTER dinner they rolled back the rugs in the drawing-room and danced. Annabel played for them until Lucius Bellingdon produced a gramophone and a pile of records and made her come and dance too. She danced as delightfully as she played.

Sally found herself with Wilfrid as a partner, but he had not asked her until Moira had gone off with Clay Masterson. She thought, “Well, anyhow he won’t be proposing to me any more, and that’s something.” Aloud she said,

“You’re holding me too tight.”

“Darling, why so captious? I’m holding you the way I’ve always done, and you haven’t minded it before.”

“Perhaps I just suffered in silence.”

He shook his head.

“Not like you, darling-the tongue has always moved freely. Haven’t you noticed it yourself?”

She laughed lightly.

“Perhaps I have.”

He said in a complacent voice, “Our steps go well together.”

“Which is what you say to every girl you dance with, isn’t it?”

“Darling, it’s part of my charm. And you should never dissect charm-the soul of it eludes you. Let us change the subject. Do you know that I am going to be your landlord?”

“You!”

He nodded.

“It’s a prosaic thought, but facts are so often prosaic. Paulina left me the house, so you see I can now evict David and move in on the top floor myself. It will cheer you like anything to be able to see me every day, and I shall demand a definite touch of respect as well as the prompt payment of the rent. David can have my room if he likes, but I don’t recommend it. Mrs. Hunable is a shocking cook.”

Sally experienced a pleasant sparkling anger. It warmed the colour in her cheeks. She said,

“You can’t turn David out!”

“Watch me, darling, and you’ll see that I can. Unconscious of his doom, the poor young artist plays-which is partly a quotation and partly my very own. When he gets back on Monday there will be a short well phrased note waiting for him. By the way, do you know whether he pays by the week, or the month, or the quarter?”

The eyes which Sally raised to his had a dancing light.

“He pays by the quarter. And I’m afraid you can’t turn him out. He isn’t a Scot for nothing, and he got Paulina to sign an agreement.” She paused, and added, “So did I.”

Wilfrid gazed reproachfully at her.

“An unwomanly action. And the Scotch are all the same-a practical, money-grubbing lot. No one with the soul of an artist would bother with anything so sordid as an agreement. I shall have to see if I can’t find a loophole. We will now leave the distressing subject and given an exhibition performance which will make all the others green with envy. ‘On with the dance, let joy be unconfined’!”

Their steps did go well together, but as far as an exhibition performance went it was Clay and Moira who would have stolen the show. Whatever else Moira was or was not, she could dance, and Clay Masterson was her match. They hardly seemed to speak-just drifted on the music as if it was a wind that carried them, her head a little tilted, her face blank, her light hair floating. Once, when he bent and said something, her lips parted and her eyes half closed.

Rather to Sally’s surprise, David asked her for the next dance, and that without a glance in the direction of Moira Herne. Any pleasure this may have given her, however, subsided when she found that all he wanted was to talk about Moira.

“She’s a marvellous subject, and I should think she’d be a good model. She really can keep still. Have you noticed that? Most people, especially women, can’t keep still at all. If they are not moving their feet or fidgeting with their hands, or feeling to see if their hair is all right, they are flicking their eyelashes up and down or doing things with their lips. Do you suppose it’s just restlessness, or do they think it’s attractive and the way to make people look at them?”

Sally allowed a small gurgling laugh to escape her. She loved David when he was earnest and didactic.

She said,

“Darling, I wouldn’t know. If I move it’s because I want to, or because a hair has got loose and is tickling me.”

David frowned.

“I told you not to call me darling! You only do it to make me lose my temper, and I won’t have it! We were talking about Moira. You mayn’t have noticed it, but she never fidgets.”

Sally gave him her wide, warm smile.

“Medusa wouldn’t. And I should think she would be the perfect model. But it was the other people who got turned into stone wasn’t it-not Medusa herself?”

His quick frown merged into a considering look. He said with an eager note in his voice,

“I got the idea as soon as I saw her, and I’ve been watching her.”

Sally said briefly, “That would have been difficult to miss.”

He went on as if she had not spoken.

“I got a sketch or two of her this afternoon. Now I want her to sit. I’ve got to get that cold look-you know what I mean.”

Sally nodded.

“She has always had it. I told you I was at school with her.”

She wanted to say a great deal more than that, but of course she couldn’t. Moira had always been poison. He would have to find it out for himself.

He said,

“You see. Medusa, she’s human. At least she was, but she’s lost the human touch and whatever she looks at loses it too. She drains it out till there’s no warmth or feeling left. Just poison and bright ice-that’s what I’ve got to try and paint, not snakes in the hair.”

Sally heard herself say, “Can you do it?”

“Oh, I think so. I’ve got a feeling about it. If it lasts, I can do it. If it doesn’t-” He frowned and broke off. “It’s quite strong. I expect it will last.”

Sally did not admire herself for what she said next, but she said it all the same.

“How pleased Moira is going to be.”

He looked at her very directly under those frowning brows and said,

“I don’t care whether she’s pleased or not. I want to paint her.”

Chapter 22

IT was no more than nine o’clock when Hubert Garratt got up and made his way to the door. As far as Miss Silver could tell he had not spoken to anyone either during dinner or since they had come into the drawing-room and the young people had begun to dance. When addressed, his replies had been monosyllabic and as nearly as possible inaudible. As the dancers required most of the floor space, he was more or less forced into the group of those who were looking on. They had their little coterie around the hearth-Miss Bray with some rather aimless crochet work, Miss Silver with her knitting, Mr. Garratt barricaded behind The Times. He now folded the paper neatly and left it lying across the arm of the chair. Looking after him, Miss Silver observed that he did not appear to be at all well, and went on to enquire whether he was always as silent. Miss Bray’s reply was a little confused. She had dropped a stitch and was not being very successful in her attempts to pick it up again.

“Hubert? I don’t think I noticed. He isn’t a person you notice very much. Did you say you thought he looked ill?”

“He does not look well. This affair has been a great shock to him.”

Miss Bray had retrieved her stitch. The threads all round it were strained and the pattern would be spoiled, but she did not seem to mind. She said with a sort of bright vagueness, “Oh, yes, indeed,” and began to talk about something else.

At the far end of the room, where curtains of green brocade screened the two long windows which overlooked the park, Lucius Bellingdon stood with Annabel Scott. They had been dancing, but had come to a standstill here. With a brief “It’s hot” he sent the curtains sliding to right and left and opened a window in the recess behind them. The air came in softly and was grateful. The moon was up and nearly full. By day the prospect would be bright with colour-green of the grass and a hundred other shades of green in swelling bud and breaking leaf-now all muted, all half seen as something in a dream. From the room behind them a panel of light slanted between the curtains and met the moonlight. As they stood there, Annabel moved a step nearer and said,