And throughout the week by which the
season was thus prolonged, in long rows at the railway stations, and on
their stands, the hackney cabmen, unconscious of what was being done for
them, waited, patient as their horses. But since everybody was making
this special effort, an exceptionally large, exclusive, and brilliant
company reassembled at Gloucester House.
In the vast ballroom over the medley of entwined revolving couples,
punkahs had been fixed, to clear and freshen the languid air, and these
huge fans, moving with incredible slowness, drove a faint refreshing
draught down over the sea of white shirt-fronts and bare necks, and
freed the scent from innumerable flowers.
Late in the evening, close by one of the great clumps of bloom, a very
pretty woman stood talking to Bertie Caradoc. She was his cousin, Lily
Malvezin, sister of Geoffrey Winlow, and wife of a Liberal peer, a
charming creature, whose pink cheeks, bright eyes, quick lips, and
rounded figure, endowed her with the prettiest air of animation. And
while she spoke she kept stealing sly glances at her partner, trying as
it were to pierce the armour of that self-contained young man.
"No, my dear," she said in her mocking voice, "you'll never persuade
me that Miltoun is going to catch on. 'Il est trop intransigeant'. Ah!
there's Babs!"
For the girl had come gliding by, her eyes wandering lazily, her lips
just parted; her neck, hardly less pale than her white frock; her face
pale, and marked with languor, under the heavy coil of her tawny hair;
and her swaying body seeming with each turn of the waltz to be caught by
the arms of her partner from out of a swoon.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207