That was said with such cheerful frankness that Aurelia laughed despite herself.
Mrs. Dalrymple nodded approvingly. “Much better. Young women are too often solemn at dinner. It gives the men an unfair advantage.”
“I had not thought men required assistance.”
“Oh, they always require assistance. Why else should they be handed wives, fortunes, and opinions from infancy?”
Aurelia lowered her gaze to her plate lest her amusement show too openly.
Mrs. Dalrymple, encouraged, continued in an undertone, “Do you know the lady in puce opposite us? No? Then you arehappier than I. She once quarreled with her own sister for wearing the same shade of blue to a musicale. They did not speak for six months. Society survived only because both continued to attend everything.”
“That sounds very tragic.”
“It was spoken of as such.”
Aurelia glanced up politely toward the lady in question and murmured. “I shall be cautious in my choice of colors.”
“My dear, you should rather be cautious in your choice of sisters.”
The exchange eased her more than she had expected. Conversation of no consequence had its uses. It left the mind freer to wander where it ought not.
And Aurelia’s mind, to her annoyance, kept wandering.
She had not meant to watch him across the table. It was unnecessary, unwise, and rather childish. Yet once one had noticed a thing too much, it became difficult to return to proper indifference. She found herself observing him in stolen glances.
She noticed that he bent his head toward his mother beside him, and as the older woman spoke, she cast one measured glance in Aurelia’s direction. It was only one, but it was enough.
Aurelia felt the familiar chill of recognition at once. He had not known her the night before, but he knew her now, or at least, he knew enough of her. The lady beside him would have supplied whatever was necessary: the name, the history, the warning.
Aurelia had seen such moments before. They rarely required more than a sentence or two.
Mrs. Dalrymple, meanwhile, continued. “And Lord Beresford’s son is said to have lost eight hundred pounds at cards last week, though his mother insists it was only four. As though half the disgrace mends the whole of it.”
Aurelia forced herself to listen. “Perhaps she thinks moderation improves ruin.”
“My dear, moderation improves nothing once the story is already known.”
There was sense in that … too much sense.
Aurelia kept her eyes fixed on her plate, though the old disappointment had already begun to stir beneath her self-control. It was foolish to feel it. She had no right to expect anything from him. She had spoken with him once, for a few minutes only, under circumstances made easy by his ignorance. If he knew now who she was, of course he would keep away. Men with name and consequence generally did.
Still, she could not deny that she had absurdly enjoyed being spoken to without the shadow of the Finch scandal falling first across the conversation.
By the time the last course was removed, Mrs. Dalrymple had improved the whole dinner by half. Yet even her company could not prevent Aurelia from feeling a peculiar unwillingness as dinner came to an end, and the guests were now invited to enjoy some drinks, while their host, who considered himself a tolerable musician but was by everyone else considered something else, seated himself at the pianoforte and began to play.
The effect was at once social and oppressive. Nobody was obliged to listen, and yet everybody was obliged to pretend to.
Aurelia had scarcely taken a glass from a passing tray when Clara came gliding to her side. She appeared all bright-eyed and restless, looking as though she had not sat through dinner so much as endured it.
“Aurelia,” she whispered, “may I go and speak to Captain Harrow?”
Aurelia turned her head at once, though she knew very well where Clara’s gaze would lead her. Captain Harrow was standing near one of the tall windows, somewhat apart from the larger knots of company, with a glass in his hand.
“He is alone,” Clara said, as if this settled every possible objection.
“He may prefer to remain so.”
Clara gave her a look. “No one prefers to remain alone at a party.”
