"Anyway," said Madge, turning to me, "it certainly does save one of the
maids a couple of hours, as long as Julia doesn't mind. But who has she
gone to see at the Golf Club at nine o'clock in the morning?"
V
The dances of my time were the waltz, the cotillion and the quadrille,
and as I am not a Pelmanist I have never acquired the dancing-fashions
of to-day. So I stood by one of Madge's tubs of hydrangeas and watched.
The large cream-and-gold room had a glazed end that opened on to the
terrace and overlooked the crowded plage below, and when I wearied of
watching the dancers I walked out on to this terrace, and when I was
tired of watching the people who moved in and out among the tents and
umbrellas and deck-chairs on the beach I returned to the dancing-room
again. And much of the time I moved about out of sheer restlessness and
apprehension.
Jennie had come to the Beverleys' party after all. She danced
occasionally with young Rugby or young Marlborough, but kept more often
close to her mother's side. And Julia Oliphant was there, not dancing at
all, talking to Madge only infrequently, but gaily enough to everybody
else--with the single exception of myself, whom (it seemed to me) she
avoided in the most marked fashion. As for the others, they danced in
flannels and blazers and varnished evening shoes, and the Beverley girls
danced with one another.
What had happened at St Briac that morning? The question gave me no
rest. Had Julia seen Derry? Idle to ask; of course she had. What had
passed between them? Useless to try to guess. I had glanced at the
Indicateur. She had caught the tram at St Enogat at eight-thirty-four
and had taken the ten-fifty-three back, reaching St Enogat again at
eleven-nineteen. Actually she had had two hours of but seven minutes at
St Briac, and that was all I knew. Again she had seized her chance with
ruthless instancy. Except for a night's rest, the very moment Jennie had
been out of the running she had been at the door of his hotel. She had
even had the effrontery to use Jennie's own bicycle as her pretext.
And now why, when I was in the dancing-room, did she seek the terrace,
and why, when I went out on the terrace, did she immediately enter the
dancing-room again?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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