Page:Across the Stream.djvu/185

Rh he said. "How frightful! Let's get out of it. But wasn't it divine? May we do it again soon? Or will they have nothing but crawlings?"

It appeared that crawlings were to be the next item, and Archie noticed that in the crowd that now came about them again a particular man had his eye on them, and was unmistakably burrowing towards them.

"Yes, Archie; of course we will," said the girl. "Go and see your aunt, and ask if we may have another waltz ever so soon. Oh, here's Lord Harlow; I want to introduce you."

This was done, and Lord Harlow turned to Helena again.

"I feel as if I had been present at some Bacchic festival," he said in a very precise voice. "But you should have vine-leaves in your hair, and er—your partner a tunic and a thyrsus. I feel myself as prosaic as a Bradshaw. But may I be your Bradshaw?"

Helena looked from one to the other; if she had had a tail she would certainly have been switching it.

"Ah, do," she said. "A Bradshaw is quite indispensable. Archie, go and get a thyrsus—will a poker do, Lord Harlow?—and persuade Mrs. Morris to have another waltz before long."

Now that the sheer animal exhilaration of that adorable waltz, which quite precluded talking, was over, it seemed perfectly suitable, as she plodded along the weary way of the fox-trot, to talk again, and in answer to Lord Harlow, who had not caught Archie's name, she said:

"Yes, Lord Davidstow. Surely I told you about him" (she knew that she had purposely not done so). "He is Lady Tintagel's son, with whom I am staying."

Lord Harlow quietly assimilated this as he turned slowly round.

"And does he do other things as well as he dances?" he asked.