Greatheart. Ethel M. Dell
play propriety. He's staid enough to chaperon a whole girls' school."
"Thanks, old chap," said Scott. "But I'm not coming down again, either."
Eustace looked over his head. "Then you must, Isabel. Come along! Just to oblige Miss Bathurst! It won't hurt you to sit in a safe corner for one dance."
Isabel looked up at him with a startled expression, as of one trapped.
"Oh, don't ask me!" she said. "I couldn't!"
"No, don't!" said Dinah. "It isn't, fair to bother anyone else on my account! I'm dreadfully sorry to have to refuse. But—in any case—I ought not to come."
"What of that?" said Eustace lightly. "Do you always do what you ought?
What a dull programme!"
Dinah flushed. "Dull but respectable," she said, with a touch of spirit.
He laughed. "But I'm not asking you to do anything very outrageous, and I shouldn't ask it at all if I didn't know you wanted to do it. Besides, you promised. It's generally considered the respectable thing to do to keep one's promises."
That reached Dinah. She wavered perceptibly. "Lady Grace will be so vexed," she murmured.
He snapped his fingers in careless disdain.
She turned appealingly to Scott. "I think I might go—just for one dance, don't you?"
Scott's pale eyes met hers with steady comradeship. "I think I shouldn't," he said.
Eustace turned as if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and suddenly she was on her feet.
He held out his hand to her with a smile half-mocking, half-persuasive. The music swung on with a subtle enchantment. Dinah uttered a little quivering laugh, and went to him.
In another moment the door closed, and they stood alone in the passage.
"I knew you wanted to," said Eustace, smiling down into her eyes with the arrogance of the conqueror.
Dinah was panting a little as one who had suffered a sudden strain. "Of course I wanted to," she returned. "But that doesn't make it right."
He pressed her hand to his heart for a moment, and she caught again a glimpse of that fire in his eyes that had so thrilled her. She could not meet it. She stood in palpitating silence.
"Where is the use of fighting against fate?" he asked her softly. "A gift of the gods is never offered twice."
She did not understand him, but her heart was beating wildly, tumultuously, and an inner voice urged her to be gone.
She slipped her hand free. "Aren't we—wasting time?" she whispered.
He laughed again in that subtle, half-mocking note, but he met her wish instantly. They went downstairs to the salon.
There were not so many dancers now. The de Vignes had evidently retired. One rapid glance told Dinah this, and she dismissed them therewith from her mind. The rhythm and lure of the music caught her. She slid into the dance with delicious abandonment. The wonder and romance of it had got into her veins. No stolen pleasure was ever more keenly enjoyed than was that last perfect dance. Her very blood was a-fire with the strange, intoxicating joy of life. She wanted to go on for ever.
But it ended at length. She came to earth after her rapturous flight, and found herself standing with her partner in a curtained recess of the ballroom from which a glass door led on to the verandah that ran round the hotel.
"Just a glimpse of the moonlight on the mountains," he said, "before we say good-night!"
She went with him without a moment's thought. She was as one caught in the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed through on to the verandah.
The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapphire. The mountains stood in solemn grandeur, domes of white mystery. The great vault of the sky was alight with stars, and a wonderful moon hung like a silver shield almost in the zenith.
"How—beautiful!" breathed Dinah.
The air was crystal clear, cold but not piercing. The absolute stillness held her spell-bound.
"It is like a dream-world," she whispered.
"In which you reign supreme," he murmured back.
She glanced at him with uncomprehending eyes. Her veins were still throbbing with the ecstasy of the dance.
"Oh, how I wish I had wings!" she suddenly said. "To swim through that glorious ether right above the mountain-tops as one swims through the sea! Don't you think flying must be very like swimming?"
"With variations," said Eustace.
His eyes dwelt upon her. They were fierily blue in that great flood of moonlight. His hand still rested upon her waist.
"But what a mistake to want the impossible!" he said, after a moment.
"I always do," said Dinah. "At least," she glanced up at him again, "I always have—until to-night."
"And to-night?" he questioned, dropping his voice.
"Oh, I am quite happy to-night," she said, with a little laugh, "even without the wings. If I hadn't thought of them, I should have nothing left to wish for."
"I wish I could say the same," said Sir Eustace, with the faint mocking smile at the corners of his lips.
"What can you want more?" asked Dinah innocently.
He leaned to her. "A big thing—a small thing! Would you give it to me, my elf of the mountains, if I dared to tell you what it was?"
Her eyes fluttered and fell before the flaming ardour of his. "I—I don't know," she faltered, in sudden confusion. "I expect so—if I could."
His arm slipped round her. "Would you?" he whispered. "Would you?"
She gave a little gasp, caught unawares like a butterfly on the wing. All the magic of the night seemed suddenly to be concentrated upon her like fairy batteries. Her first feeling was dismay, followed instantly by the wonder if she could be dreaming. And then, as she felt the drawing of his arm, something vehement, something almost fierce, awoke within her, clamouring wildly for freedom.
It was a blind instinct, but she obeyed it without question. She had no choice.
"Oh no!" she cried. "Oh no! I couldn't!" and wrested herself from him in a panic.
He let her go, and she heard him laugh as she broke away. But she did not wait for more. To linger was unthinkable. Urged by that imperative, inner prompting she turned and fled, not pausing for a moment's thought.
The glass door closed behind her. She burst impetuously into the deserted ballroom. And here, on the point of entering the small recess from which she was escaping, she came suddenly face to face with Scott.
So headlong was her flight that she actually ran into him. He put out a steadying hand.
"I was just coming to look for you," he said in his quiet, composed fashion.
She stopped unwillingly. "Oh, were you? How kind! I—I think I ought to go up now. It's getting late, isn't it? Good-night!"
He did not seek to detain her. She wondered with a burning sense of shame what he could have thought of her wild rush. But she was too agitated to attempt any excuse, too agitated to check her retreat. Without a backward glance she hastened away like Cinderella overtaken by fate; the spell was broken, the glamour gone.
CHAPTER VIII