There was no motherliness in Mrs. Haddington's manner towards him. She accorded him no more than a chilly smile, and two fingers to shake, her eyes going beyond him to the portly figure of that noted sportsman and bon viveur, Sir Roderick Vickerstown, who was heavily ascending the stairs in his wake. This immediately clouded Sydney's pleasure. He mistook his hostess's indifference for dislike, and was at once hurt and ill-at-ease. That he had no liking for her, and no particular desire to be invited to her house, weighed with him not at alclass="underline" he could not be happy if he was not approved of. He lingered beside her for a moment, fidgeting with his tie, fancied that he could detect hostility in Sir Roderick's choleric blue eye, and flung away to join Timothy and Guisborough, who were standing before the fire in the front drawing-room.
Guisborough, never one to disguise his sentiments, responded to his greetings with an ungracious nod; but Timothy was more civil, and even, since he was just about to light a cigarette, offered his case to him. Sydney was momentarily soothed, but as he stretched out his hand to take a cigarette, he most unfortunately caught sight of Dan Seaton-Carew, talking to Cynthia at the far end of the drawing-room.
That damsel, not to be baulked in her determination to get Seaton-Carew to herself, had dragged him into the back drawing-room, and- appeared to be pouring some confidence into his ear. In her artless fashion, she had acquired a grip on the lapel of his coat. His attitude might have been described as fatherly by the charitablyminded. He stroked her shining head in a soothing way, and seemed to be uttering such words as a man might use to reassure an unreasonably troubled child.
Sydney uttered an exclamation, and hurried into the back drawing-room. "Dan!" he said eagerly.
"Bloody little pansy!" remarked Lord Guisborough, drawn into brief fellowship with Mr. Harte.
"Dan!" Sydney repeated. "I wondered if you'd be here! I've been trying to get hold of you all day!" He glanced at Cynthia, jealousy in his face, and said curtly: "How do you do? Dan, I rang you up five times, but your man said you were out!"
Seaton-Carew, like many before him, had grown tired of the exigencies of intimacy with his young friend. Moreover, he disliked having his tete-a-tetes interrupted. He said, rather brutally: "Yes, that's what I told him to say. What the hell's the matter anyway?"
Sydney flushed vividly, and stammered: "I haven't seen anything of you for days! I was afraid you were ill, or something!"
"Well, I'm not. Do, for God's sake, stop barging in where you ought to be able to see you're not wanted!"
The flush died, leaving Sydney's face very white. "I see!" he said, in a low, shaking voice. "That's how it is, is it? When Cynthia's around you've no use for me!"
"Oh, shut up!" Seaton-Carew said roughly. "I've had enough of your scenes! Either behave like a reasonable being or get out! Making a damned exhibition of yourself - I'm fed up with it!"
"You mean you're fed up with me!"
"All right, I mean that!" Seaton-Carew said, exasperated.
Cynthia gave a nervous giggle, glancing towards the front drawing-room, where people were beginning to assemble. "For goodness' sake!" she whispered. "Mummy will have a fit!"
For a perilous moment it looked as though Sydney might so far forget himself as to strike Seaton-Carew. He stood staring at him, his eyes burning in his white face, and his fists clenching involuntarily. His chest heaved with something like a sob; he began to say something, in a trembling, almost inaudible voice, and was mercifully interrupted.
"Cynthia darling! How sweet you look! Oh, Dan! How lovely!"
Lady Nest Poulton, a little wisp of a woman, with great eyes in a heart-shaped, haggard face, came up to the group in a cloud of chiffon; and Sydney, recollecting his surroundings, turned rather blindly away.
"Charming frock! Dreadful young man!" murmured Lady Nest, with her fleeting, appealing smile. "You know Godfrey, don't you? Yes, of course you do!" She hesitated for the fraction of a second, and added: "And Mr. Seaton-Carew, Godfrey, whom you've met."
Her husband, a stockily-built man, with a square, impassive countenance, favoured Seaton-Carew with an unsmiling stare, bowed infinitesimally, and turned from him to speak to Cynthia. The smile wavered pathetically on Lady Nest's face; for a moment she looked nervous, her eyes shifting from him to Seaton-Carew, and away again; then she gave her empty tinkle of laughter, and flitted off to exchange over-affectionate greetings with a raddled brunette in petunia satin.
Sydney Butterwick, plunging away from the group like a stampeded mustang, startled several persons by his mien, which they afterwards described as distraught. He seemed to be making for the door, but fortunately for the smooth conduct of the Bridge-party he encountered a fellow balletomane, who hailed him with delight, exclaiming: "Sydney! I saw you last night. What did you think? Will she be a ballerina assoluta? Did you count her fouettes? Though I thought she was definitely at her best in the pas de quatre."
These words had the happy effect of checking Sydney in mid-career. He responded automatically to them, and in an impassioned discussion on arabesques, elevations, enchainements, ballerinas, and danseurs nobles, managed to recover himself. His eyes, and his twitching fingers, showed him to be still very much upset, but by the time his ecstatic acquaintance had deserted him for a middleaged diplomat who could well remember the stars of the Maryinsky Theatre, he had apparently recollected the impropriety of incontinently rushing from the house; and went up to Sir Roderick Vickerstown instead, to discover from him who was to be his partner.
Sir Roderick, and that fashionable consultant, Dr Theodore Westruther, had consented to be the scorers and general managers of the party, dual roles which bade fair to reduce both gentlemen to a state of nervous prostration. The difficulties attendant upon persuading a chattering crowd of guests to postpone the exchange of confidences, and to take their places at the various tables were enormous; and when twelve persons had at last been singled out from the crowd and driven downstairs to the library, and those who were to remain in the drawing-room shepherded to their tables, it was still some time before play could begin. Earnest players, itching to inspect the hands stuck into the slots of the duplicate-boards, in vain suggested that Bridge and not conversation was the order of the evening. A babel of voices made play impossible, for besides the inveterate recounters of anecdotes, there was a strong faction of persons bent on making known the systems which governed their play; a still stronger one of those who were willing to play any convention, but who required to be reminded of the rules governing all but their particular choice; several nervous people who had never played duplicate Bridge before and had to have the procedure explained to them; one or two ladies of terrifying aspect, who warned their partners in menacing accents that they expected to be taken out of a No Trump call; and a small clique of fanatics who filled in the time before play started by describing in a very boring way the interesting hands they had held recently, and the skill with which they had made their contracts.