Ensart insisted on turning on the lights and starting the machine; and presently Anne Randolph and Peggy were dancing the Miraflores with Cecil and Ensart.
Welter had cornered Hargrave and Dane and was telling them all about it, and Athalie went slowly through the passage-way and into her own bedroom, where she stood quite motionless for a while, looking at the floor. Hafiz, dozing on the bed, awoke, gazed at his mistress gravely, yawned, and went to sleep again.
[Illustration: "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap record, that evening."]
Presently she dropped onto a chair by her little ivory-tinted Louis XVI desk. There was a telephone there and a directory.
When she had decided to open the latter, and had found the number she wanted, she unhooked the receiver and called for it.
After a few minutes somebody said that he was not in his room, but that he was being paged.
She waited, dully attentive to the far noises which sounded over the wire; then came a voice:
She said: "I wished to speak to Mr. Bailey--Mr. Clive Bailey."
For a moment the fact that she had not recognised his voice seemed to strike her speechless. And it was only when he spoke again, inquiringly, that she said in a low voice: "Clive!"
And in the next heavily pulsating moment her breath came back with her self-control:
"When you like. Come now if you like--unless you were engaged--"
She heard him laugh--such a curious, strange, shaken laugh.
She said: "I shall be very glad to see you, Clive. There are some of your friends here, too, who will be glad to see you."
"No; I had rather meet you for the first time when others are here--if you don't mind. Do you?"
Her heart was going at a terrific pace when she hung up the receiver. She went to her mirror, turned on the side-lights, and looked at herself. From the front room came the sound of the dance music, a ripple or two of laughter. Welter's eager voice singing still of arms and the man.
Long she stood there, motionless, studying herself, so that, when the moment came that was coming now so swiftly upon her, she might know what she appeared like in his eyes.
All, so far, was sheer, fresh youth with her; her eyes had not lost their dewy beauty; the splendour of her hair remained unchanged. There were no lines, nothing lost, nothing hardened in contour. Clear and smooth her snowy chin; perfect, so far, the lovely throat: nothing of blemish was visible, no souvenirs of grief, of pain.