THE COLLECTED WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

       The whole scene had lasted not more than a minute, and scarcely half-a-dozen people had seen her speaking to him, or knew who it was. Berts, who had just arrived, was one of these. Dodo turned to him.

      "Ah, there you are, Berts," she said. "We are going to begin the cotillion exactly at twelve. Yes, poor dear Waldenech looked in, but he couldn't stop. You might remember not to tell Nadine. And why wasn't Edith here for dinner? Or isn't she staying here now? Now I come to think of it I haven't seen her all day."

      "She left you yesterday," said Berts, "and I've just left her at home eating a chop and correcting proofs of a part-song. She was also singing. She's coming though, and says she will lead the cotillion with me, and she's sure you oughtn't to. She didn't say why."

      Dodo went up to Jack.

      "He went like a lamb, poor dear," she said, "though I thought for a moment he was going to stop like a lion. It gave me a little heart-ache, Jack, for, after all, you know— Now we are going twice round the ball-room. It isn't much of a heart-ache, it's only a little one, and I expect it will soon stop."

      This, it may be expected, was the case, for certainly Dodo did not behave as if she had any kind of ache, however little, anywhere, and, whether she danced or sat still, was the sun and center of the brilliant scene. Wall-flowers raised their heads on her approach, and were galvanized into vitality. She ordained that there should be a waltz in which nobody should take part who was not over forty, led off herself with Lord Ayr, who had not had a wink of sleep all evening, and was far too much surprised to be capable of resistance, and convinced him that his dancing days were not nearly over yet. All manner of women who had hoped that nobody dreamed that they were more than thirty-five at the most followed her, reckless of the antiquity which they had publicly and irrevocably acknowledged, while Edith Arbuthnot, arriving in the middle of this and being quite unable to find a disengaged gentleman of suitable years, pirouetted up and down the room all by herself, until she clawed hold of Jack, who was taking the breathless Lady Ayr to get some strictly unalcoholic refreshment.

      "I don't know how I came to do it," said this lady to Esther, as she drank her lemonade. "I haven't danced for years. Somehow I feel as if it was Lady Chesterford's fault. She has got into everybody's head, it seems to me. We're all behaving like boys and girls. Fancy Ayr dancing, too! Ayr, I saw you dancing."

      Lord Ayr had come in with Dodo, at the end of this, unutterably briskened up.

      "And I saw you dancing, my dear," he said. "And I hope you feel all the better for it, because I do."

      "We all do," said Dodo, "and we'll all do it again. I want everything at once, a cigarette and an ice and a glass of champagne and Berts. Esther, be angelic and fetch me Berts. Don't tell him only I want him, but fetch him. Oh, Jack, isn't it fun: yes, darling, we're going to begin the cotillion immediately, and I'm going to be ever so quiet. Edith, it was dear of you to offer to take my place, but I wouldn't give it up to Terpsichore herself or even Salome. Jack dear, go and make every one go and sit down in two rows round the ball-room, and if anybody finds a rather large diamond about, it's probably mine, though I never wrote my name on it.... Wasn't it careless? It resembles the Koh-i-noor. Oh, Berts, there you are. Now don't lose your head, but give all the plainest women the most favors. Then the pretty ones will easily see the plan, and the plain ones won't. It's the greatest happiness for the plainest number."

       Certainly it was the most successful cotillion. As Dodo had arranged, all the more unattractive people got selected first, and all the more attractive, as Dodo had foreseen, saw exactly what was happening. The style was distinctly anti-Leap-year and in the mirror-figure men, instead of women, rejected the faces in the glass, and Lord Ayr had nothing whatever to say to his wife, who was instantly accepted by Jack. And at the end, the band preceding, they danced through the entire house, from cellar to garret. They waltzed through drawing-rooms and dining-room, and up the stairs, and through Dodo's bedroom, and through Jack's dressing-room, where his pajamas were lying on his bed (Berts put them on en passant), and into cul-de-sacs, and impenetrable servants' rooms. And somehow it was Dodo all the time who inspired these childish orgies: those near her saw her, those behind danced wildly after her. There was no accounting for it, except in the fact that while she was enjoying herself so enormously, it was impossible not to enjoy too. Sometimes it was she shrieking, "Yes, straight on," sometimes it was her laugh-choked voice, saying "No, don't go in there," but the fact that she was leading them, with her nursery fender, and her vitality, and her ropes of pearls, and her complete abandon to the spirit of dancing, with Berts for partner in Jack's pajamas, made a magnet that it was impossible not to follow. They passed through bedroom and attic, they went twice round the huge kitchen, where the chef, at Dodo's imperious command, laid down his culinary implements (which at the moment meant an ice-pail) and joined the dance with the first kitchen-maid. Then Dodo saw a footman standing idle, and called to him, "Take my maid, William," and William with a broad grin embraced a perfectly willing Frenchwoman of great attractions, and joined in the dance. Like the fairies in a Midsummer-night's Dream, they danced the whole hour through, Dodo with Berts, the chef with the kitchen-maid, William with Dodo's maid, Lord Ayr with Nadine, Lady Ayr with somebody whom nobody knew by sight, who had probably come there by mistake, and the first twenty couples or so finished up in the cellar. This, though it seemed improvised, had been provided for, and there were cane-chairs to rest in, and bottles instantly opened. The rest, following the band, danced their way back to the supper-room, where they were almost immediately joined by the cellar party, who were hungry as well as thirsty, and had nothing to eat down below.

       It was between three and four o'clock that the last guests took their ways. As the dance had been announced to take place from ten till two, the cordial spirit of the invitation had been made good. And at length Dodo found herself alone with Jack.

      "Lovely, just lovely," she said, as he unclasped her diamond collar. "Oh, Jack, what a darling world it is!"

      "Not tired?"

      Dodo faced round, and her brilliance and freshness was a thing to marvel at

      "Look at me!" she said. "Tell me if I look tired!"

      He laid the collar down on her table: her neck seemed to him so infinitely more beautiful than the gorgeous bauble with which it had been covered, a Beauty released from beauteous bonds.

      "Not very. Ah, Dodo, and this is the best of all, when they have all gone, and you are left."

      She put her face up to his.

      "Why, of course," she said. "Do you suppose I wasn't looking forward to this one minute alone with you all the evening? I was, my dear, though if I said I thought of it all the time, I should be telling a silly lie. But it was anchored firmly in my mind all the time. Oh, what pretty speeches for a middle-aged old couple to make to each other! But the fact is that we get on very nicely together. Good-night, old boy. It's all too lovely. Oh, Daddy! Fancy becoming Daddy! Oh, by the way, did Hugh come? I didn't see him."

      "Yes, he sat out a couple of dances with Nadine, and then went away."

      "Poor old chap!" said Dodo.

      As has been mentioned, Dodo proposed to take her family and a great many other people as well to spend Christmas down at Meering, which at this inclement time of the year often had spells of warm and genial weather. Scattered through the same weeks there were to be several shooting-parties at Winston, but motor-cars, driven at a sufficiently high speed, made light of the difficulty of being in two places at the same time, and on the day after the dance she talked these arrangements over with Nadine.

      "In any case," she said, "you can be hostess in one house and I, in the other, so that we can be in two places at once quite easily, so Jack is wrong as usual. Jack dear, I said 'as usual.'"

      Jack got up: it was he who had made the ill-considered remark that you can't be in two places at once.

      "I heard," he said, "and you may hear, too, that I will not have you going up to North Wales every other day, and flying down again the next. Otherwise you may settle what you like. Personally, I shall be at Winston almost all the time, as there's a heap of business to be done, and as