There was something beautiful
almost in the strength and grace with which it had been
delivered--the breathless eagerness, the waiting, the end.
Francis felt a touch upon his arm and looked around. A tall,
sad-faced looking woman, whom he had noticed with a vague sense
of familiarity in the dancing-room, was standing by his side.
"You have forgotten me, Mr. Ledsam," she said.
"For the moment," he admitted.
"I am Isabel Culbridge," she told him, watching his face.
"Lady Isabel?" Francis repeated incredulously. "But surely--"
"Better not contradict me," she interrupted. "Look again."
Francis looked again.
"I am very sorry," he said. "It is some time, is it not, since
we met?"
She stood by his side, and for a few moments neither of them
spoke. The little orchestra in the bows had commenced to play
softly, but there was none of the merriment amongst the handful
of men and women generally associated with a midnight river
picnic. The moon was temporarily obscured, and it seemed as
though some artist's hand had so dealt with the few electric
lights that the men, with their pale faces and white shirt-fronts,
and the three or four women, most of them, as it happened, wearing
black, were like some ghostly figures in some sombre procession.
Only the music kept up the pretence that this was in any way an
ordinary excursion.
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