Part 16 (2/2)

She boasted of her enjoyment of the ball to Barbara next day, and said that she had been so busy dancing that she had never gone down to supper at all.

”But that must never happen again,” Lady Isabel said, horrified. ”Girls do that sort of thing at first, when they're foolish, and then they get over-tired and lose all their looks and have no more good times.”

It seemed the omega of disaster.

Nevertheless, there were other b.a.l.l.s 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 navely 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 const.i.tuted 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 d.u.c.h.ess'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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 _ba.n.a.le_ 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.

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