Part 23 (2/2)

And then yet another thought beset him. What guarantee had he that Iris Wayne would welcome him to her birthday feast? He had thrown her kindness back into her face, had first accepted and then carelessly repudiated her friends.h.i.+p; and it was only too probable she had written him down as a casual and discourteous trifler with whom, in future, she desired to hold no intercourse.

The suns.h.i.+ny day which the rest of the world found so beautiful was one long torment to Anstice. Restless, undecided, unhappy, he went about his work with set lips and a haggard face, and those of his patients who had lately found him improved to a new and attractive sociability revised their later impressions of him in favour of their first and less pleasing ones.

At five o'clock, acting on sudden impulse, he rang up Greengates and asked for Miss Wayne.

After a short delay she came, and as he heard her soft voice over the wire Anstice's face grew grim with controlled emotion.

”Is that you, Dr. Anstice?”

”Yes, Miss Wayne. I wanted to say--but first, may I wish you--many happy returns of your birthday?”

”Thanks very much.” Straining his ears to catch every inflection in her voice, Anstice thought he detected a note of coldness. ”By the way, were those beautiful sweet-peas from you--the ones that came at twelve o'clock to-day?”

”I sent them, yes.” So much, at least, he had permitted himself to do.

”They were lovely--thank you so much for them.” Iris spoke with a trifle more warmth, and for a moment Anstice faltered in his purpose. ”You are coming to dinner presently, aren't you? Seven o'clock, because of the dance.”

”Miss Wayne, I'm sorry ...” the lie almost choked him, but he hurried on, ”... I can't get over to Greengates in time for dinner. I--I have a call--into the country--and can't get back before eight or nine.”

”Oh!” For a moment Iris was silent, and to the man at the other end of the wire it seemed an eternity before she spoke again. Then: ”I'm sorry,” said Iris gently. ”But you will come to the dance afterwards?”

For a second Anstice wavered. It would be wiser to refuse, to allege uncertainty, at least, to leave himself a loophole of escape did he find it impossible to trust himself sufficiently to go. He opened his lips to tell her he feared it might be difficult to get away, to prepare her for his probable absence; and then:

”Of course I will come to the dance,” he said steadily. ”I would not miss it for anything in the world!”

And he rang off hastily, fearing what he might be tempted to say if the conversation were allowed to continue another moment.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Anstice entered the hall of Greengates that night; and by that time dancing was in full swing.

By an irony of Fate he had been called out when just on the point of starting, and had obeyed the summons reluctantly enough.

The fact that his importunate patient was a tiny girl who was gasping her baby life away in convulsions changed his reluctance into an energetic desire to save the pretty little creature's life at any cost; but all his skill was of no avail, and an hour after he entered the house the child died.

Even then he could not find it in his heart to hurry away. The baby's parents, who were young and sociable people, had been, like himself, invited to the dance at Greengates--had, indeed, been ready to start when the child was taken ill; and the contrast between the young mother's frantic grief and her glittering ball-gown and jewels struck Anstice as an almost unendurable irony.

When at last he was able to leave the stricken house, having done all in his power to lighten the horror of the dreary hour, he was in no mood for gaiety, and for a few moments he meditated sending a message to say he was, after all, unable to be present at the dance.

Then the vision of Iris rose again before his eyes, and immediately everything else faded from his world, and he hastened to Greengates, arriving just as the clock struck eleven.

He saw her the moment he entered the room after greeting Sir Richard and Lady Laura in the hall. She was dancing with Cheniston, and Anstice had never seen her look more radiant.

She was wearing the very s.h.i.+mmering white frock in which he had pictured her, a filmy chiffon thing which set off her youthful beauty to its highest perfection; and the pearls which lay on her milky throat, the satin slippers which cased her slender feet, the bunch of lilies-of-the valley at her breast, were details in so charming a picture that others besides Anstice found her distractingly pretty to-night.

And as he noted her happy look, the air of serene content with which she yielded her slim form to her partner's guidance, the light in the grey eyes which smiled into Cheniston's face, Anstice's heart gave one bitter throb and then lay heavy as a stone in his breast.

He hardly doubted that she was won already; and in Cheniston's proud and a.s.sured bearing he thought he read the story of that winning.

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