14 Miriam reached the conservatory from the garden door and set about opening the lid of the grand piano. She could see at the far end of the almost empty drawing-room a little ruddy thick-set bearded man with a roll of music under his arm talking to her mother. He was standing very near to her, surrounding her with his eager presence. “Mother’s wonderful,” thought Miriam, with a moment’s adoration for Mrs. Henderson’s softly-smiling girlish tremulousness. Listening to the man’s hilarious expostulating narrative voice she fumbled hastily for her waltz amongst the scattered piles of music on the lid of the piano. As she struck her opening chords she watched her mother gently quell the narrative and steer the sturdy form towards a group of people hesitating in the doorway. “Have they had coffee?” she wondered anxiously. “Is Mary driving them into the dining-room properly?” Before she had reached the end of her second page everyone had disappeared. She paused a moment and looked down the brightly lit empty room--the sight of the cold sheeny drugget filled her with despair. The hilarious voice resounded in the hall. There couldn’t be many there yet. Were they all looking after them properly? For a moment she was tempted to leave her piano and go and make some desperate attempt at geniality. Then the sound of the pervading voice back again in the room and brisk footsteps coming towards the conservatory drove her back to her music. The little man stepped quickly over the low moulding into the conservatory. “Ah, Mariamne,” he blared gently. “Oh, Bennett, you angel, how _did_ you get here so early?” responded Miriam, playing with zealous emphasis. “Got old Barrowgate to finish off the out-patients,” he said with a choke of amusement. “I say, Mirry, don’t you play. Let me take it on. You go and ply the light fantastic.” He laid his hands upon her shoulders and burred the tune she was playing like a muted euphonium over the top of her head. “No. It’s all right. Go and get them dancing. Get over the awfulness--_you_ know.” “Get over the awfulness, eh? Oh, I’ll get over the awfulness.” “Ssh--are there many there?” They both looked round into the drawing-room. Nan Babington was backing slowly up and down the room supported by the outstretched arms of Bevan Seymour, her black head thrown back level with his, the little scarlet knot in her hair hardly registering the smooth movements of her invisible feet. “They seem to have begun,” shouted Bennett in a whisper as Harriett and her fiancé swung easily circling into the room and were followed by two more couples. “Go and dance with Meg. She only knows Tommy Babington.” “Like the lid up?” 15 Miriam’s rhythmic clangour doubled its resonance in the tiled conservatory as the great lid of the piano went up. “Magnifique, Mirry, parfaitement magnifique,” intoned Tommy Babington, appearing in the doorway with Meg on his arm.