Greatheart by Ethel May Dell (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

you will."

She turned towards him with a small, confidential gesture. "What about
Rose de Vigne?" she said. "Don't you want to dance with her?"

"Oh, presently," he said. "She'll keep."

Dinah broke into her high, sweet laugh. "And what about—all my other partners?" she said, with more assurance.

He bent to her. "They must keep too. Seriously, you don't want to dance with any other fellow, do you?"

"I'm not a bit serious," said Dinah.

"Do you?" he insisted.

She lifted her eyes momentarily.

"You don't?" he insinuated.

She surrendered without conditions. "Of course I don't."

"Then you mustn't," he said. "Consider yourself booked to me for to-night, and when you're not dancing with me, you can rest. Sit out with Scott if you like! Will you do that?"

"Why?" whispered Dinah.

Again her heart was beating very fast; she wondered why.

He answered her with an impetuosity that seemed to carry her along with it. "Because your dancing is superb, magnificent, and I want to keep it for myself. It may not be the same when you've danced with another man. A flower fresh plucked is always sweeter than one that someone else has worn."

Dinah's hands clasped each other unconsciously. She had never dreamed that Apollo could so stoop to favour her.

"I will do as you like," she murmured after a moment. "But I don't suppose for an instant that anyone else would want to dance with me. I don't know anyone else."

He smiled. "I'm glad of that. It would be sheer sacrilege for you to dance with a young oaf who didn't know how. It's a bargain then. I'll give you all I can. You mustn't tell, of course."

"Oh, I won't tell," laughed Dinah.

He gave her his arm. "They are tuning up. We won't lose a minute. I always like a clear floor, before the rabble begin."

He led her to the top of the room, stood for a moment; then, as the music began, caught her to him, and they floated once more into the shining, enchanted mazes of their dreamland.

And Dinah danced as one inspired, for it seemed to her that her feet moved upon air as though winged. Apollo had drawn her up to Olympus, and she drifted in his arm in spheres unknown, far above the clouds.

CHAPTER VI CINDERELLA

"Come and sit down!" said Scott.

Dinah gave a little start. She was standing close to him, but she had not seen him. She looked at him for a second with far-away eyes, as if she did not know him.

Then recognition flashed into them. She smiled an eager greeting. "Oh, Mr. Studley, I want to thank you for the very happiest evening of my life."

He smiled also as he sat down beside her. "You are enjoying yourself?"

"Oh yes, indeed I am!" she assured him. "Thank you a hundred million times!"

"Why thank me?" questioned Scott.

She drew a long, long breath. "Because you were the magician who pulled the strings. I should never have got dressed in the first place but for you."

He gave a laugh of amused protest. "Oh, surely! I don't feel I deserve that!"

She laughed with him. "You did it anyhow. And in the second place you got me out of a villainous bad temper and turned an ugly goblin into a very happy butterfly. I'm downright ashamed of myself for being so horrid about Rose de Vigne. She isn't at all a bad sort though she is so impossibly beautiful. Your brother is going to dance with her now. See! There they go!"

She looked after them with a smile of complete content.

"You're feeling generous," remarked Scott.

She turned to him again, flushed and radiant. "I can afford to—though it's for the first time in my life. I've never had such a happy time,—never, never, never! Isn't your brother wonderful? His dancing is—" Words failed her. She raised her hands and let them fall with a gesture expressive of unbounded admiration.

"You mustn't let him monopolize you," said Scott. "He has plenty to choose from, you know. Others haven't."

She laughed. "He says—I wonder if it's true!—he says I am the best dancer he has ever met!"

Scott smiled at her beaming face. "That is very nice—for him," he observed. "I thought you seemed to be getting on very well."

Her eyes travelled across the room again to her late partner and the beautiful Miss de Vigne. She watched them intently for a few seconds.

"Poor Rose!" she said suddenly.

Scott was watching her. "Isn't she a good dancer?" he asked.

She turned back to him. "Oh yes, I believe she is. She always has plenty of partners anyway. At least I've always heard so. Is your sister dancing? I don't think I can have seen her yet."

"No. She is in her sitting-room upstairs. I wanted her to come down, but she wouldn't be persuaded. She—" Scott hesitated a moment—"is not fond of gaiety."

"Then I shan't see her!" said Dinah in tones of genuine disappointment.
"I did so want to thank her for lending me these lovely things."

"I can take you to her if you'll come," said Scott.

"Oh, can you? Yes, I'll come. I can come now. But are you sure she will like it?" Dinah's bright eyes met his with frank directness. "I don't want to intrude on her, you know," she said.

He smiled a little. "I am sure you won't intrude. Shall we go then? Are you sure there is no one else you want to dance with here?"

"Oh, quite sure." Again momentarily Dinah's look sought her late partner; then briskly she stood up.

Scott rose also, and gave her his arm. She bestowed a small, friendly squeeze upon it. "I've never enjoyed myself so much before," she said. "And it's all your doing."

"Oh, not really!" he said.

She nodded vigorously. "But it is! I should never have been presentable but for you. And I should certainly never have danced with your brother. He has actually promised to help me with my skating to-morrow. Isn't it kind of him?"

"I wonder," said Scott.

"What do you wonder?" Dinah looked at him curiously.

But he only smiled a baffling smile, and turned the subject. "Wouldn't you like something to drink before we go up?"

Dinah declined. She was not in the least thirsty. She did not feel as if she would ever want to eat or drink again.

"Only to dance!" said Scott. "Well, I mustn't keep you long then. Who is that lady making signs to you? Hadn't you better go and speak to her?"

"Oh, bother!" said Dinah. "You come too, then. It's only Lady
Grace—Rose's mother. I'm sure it can't be anything important."

Scott piloted her across the vestibule to the couch on which Lady Grace sat. She was a large, fair woman with limpid eyes and drawling speech. She extended a plump white hand to the girl.

"Dinah, my dear, I think you have had almost enough for to-night. And they were so very behind time in starting. Your mother would not like you to stay up late, I feel sure. You had better go to bed when this dance is over. You are not accustomed to dissipation, remember."

A swift cloud came over Dinah's bright face. "Oh, but, Lady Grace, I'm not in the least tired. And I'm not a baby, you know. I'm nearly twenty. I really couldn't go yet."

"You will have plenty more opportunities, dear," said Lady Grace, quite unruffled. "Rose has decided to retire after this dance, and I shall do the same. The Colonel is suffering with dyspepsia, and he does not wish us to be late."

Dinah bit her lip. "Oh, very well," she said somewhat shortly; and to
Scott, "We had better go at once then."

He led her away obediently. They ascended the stairs together.

As they reached the top of the flight Dinah's indignation burst its
bounds. "Isn't it too bad? Why should I go to bed just because the
Colonel's got dyspepsia? I don't believe it's that at all really. It's
Rose who can't bear to think that I am having as good a time—or
Better—than she is."

"May I say what I think?" asked Scott politely.

She stopped, facing him. "Yes, do!"

He was smiling somewhat whimsically. "I think that—like Cinderella—you may break the spell if you stay too long."

"But isn't it too bad?" protested Dinah. "Your brother too—I can't disappoint him."

Scott's smile became a laugh. "Oh, believe me, it would do him good, Miss
Bathurst. He gets his own way much too often."

She smiled, but not very willingly. "It does seem such a shame. He has been—so awfully nice to me."

"That's nothing," said Scott airily. "We can all be nice when we are enjoying ourselves."

Dinah looked at him with sudden attention. "Are you pointing a moral?" she asked severely.

"Trying to," said Scott.

She tried to frown upon him, but very abruptly and completely failed. Her pointed chin went up in a gay laugh. "You do it very nicely," she said. "Thank you, Mr. Studley. I won't be grumpy any more. It would be a pity to break the spell, as you say. Will you explain to the prince?"

"Certainly," he said, leading her on again. "I shall make it quite clear to him that Cinderella was not to blame. Here is our sitting-room at the end of this passage!"

He stopped at the door and would have opened it, but Dinah, smitten with sudden shyness, drew back.

"Hadn't you better go in first and—and explain?" she said.

"Oh no, quite unnecessary," he said, and turned the handle.

At once a woman's voice accosted him. "For the Lord's sake, Master Stumpy, come in quick and shut the door behind ye! The racket downstairs is sending Miss Isabel nearly crazy, poor lamb. And it's meself that's wondering what we'll do to-night, for there's no peace at all in this wooden shanty of a place."

"Be quiet, Biddy!" Scott's voice made calm, undaunted answer. "You can go if you like. I've come to sit with Miss Isabel for a while. And I've brought her a visitor. Isabel, my dear, I've brought you a visitor."

Dinah moved forward in response to his gentle insistence, but her shyness went with her. She was aware of something intangible in the atmosphere that startled, that almost frightened, her.

The gaunt figure of a woman clad in a long, white robe sat at a table in the middle of the room with a sheaf of letters littered before her. Her emaciated arms were flung wide over them, her white head was bowed.

But at Scott's quiet announcement, it was raised with the suddenness of eager expectancy. For the fraction of a second Dinah saw dark, sunken eyes ablaze with a hope that was almost terrible in its intensity.

It was gone on the instant. They looked at her with a species of dull wonder. "Are you a friend of Scott's? I am very pleased to meet you," a hollow voice said.

A thin hand was extended to her, and as Dinah clasped it a sudden great pity surged through her, dispelling her doubt. Something in her responded swiftly, even passionately, to the hunger of those eyes. The moment's shock passed from her like a cloud.

"My sister Mrs. Everard," said Scott's voice at her shoulder. "Isabel, this is Miss Bathurst of whom I was telling you."

"You lent me your jewels," said Dinah, looking into the wasted face with a sympathy at her heart that was almost too poignant to be borne. "Thank you so very, very much for them! It was so very kind of you to lend them to a total stranger like me."

The strange eyes were gazing at her with a curious, growing interest. A faint, faint smile was in their depths. "Are we strangers, child?" the low voice asked. "I feel as if we had met before. Why do you look at me so kindly? Most people only stare."

Dinah was suddenly conscious of a hot sensation at the throat that made her want to cry. "It is you who have been kind," she said, and her little hand closed with confidence upon the limp, cold fingers. "I am wearing your things still, and I have had such a lovely time. Thank you again for letting me have them. I am going to return them now."

"You need not do that." Isabel spoke with her eyes still fixed