The Card | Page 5

the gaze
of two hundred persons, and yet his secret wish was to deprive his
mother of the beautiful spectacle.
However, she slipped in, with her bag and her seamy fingers and her
rather sardonic expression, at the very moment when Denry was putting
on his overcoat in the kitchen (there being insufficient room in the
passage). He did what he could to hide his shirt-front (though she knew
all about it), and failed.
"Bless us!" she exclaimed briefly, going to the fire to warm her hands.
A harmless remark. But her tone seemed to strip bare the vanity of
human greatness.
"I'm in a hurry," said Denry, importantly, as if he was going forth to
sign a treaty involving the welfare of the nations.
"Well," said she, "happen ye are, Denry. But th' kitchen table's no place
for boot-brushes."
He had one piece of luck. It froze. Therefore no anxiety about the

condition of boots.
VI
The Countess was late; some trouble with a horse. Happily the Earl had
been in Bursley all day, and had dressed at the Conservative Club; and
his lordship had ordered that the programme of dances should be begun.
Denry learned this as soon as he emerged, effulgent, from the
gentlemen's cloak-room into the broad red-carpeted corridor which runs
from end to end of the ground-floor of the Town Hall. Many important
townspeople were chatting in the corridor--the innumerable Swetnam
family, the Stanways, the great Etches, the Fearnses, Mrs Clayton
Vernon, the Suttons, including Beatrice Sutton. Of course everybody
knew him for Duncalf's shorthand clerk and the son of the
flannel-washer; but universal white kid gloves constitute a democracy,
and Shillitoe could put more style into a suit than any other tailor in the
Five Towns.
"How do?" the eldest of the Swetnam boys nodded carelessly.
"How do, Swetnam?" said Denry, with equal carelessness.
The thing was accomplished! That greeting was like a Masonic
initiation, and henceforward he was the peer of no matter whom. At
first he had thought that four hundred eyes would be fastened on him,
their glance saying, "This youth is wearing a dress-suit for the first time,
and it is not paid for, either!" But it was not so. And the reason was that
the entire population of the Town Hall was heartily engaged in
pretending that never in its life had it been seen after seven o'clock of a
night apart from a dress-suit. Denry observed with joy that, while
numerous middle-aged and awkward men wore red or white silk
handkerchiefs in their waistcoats, such people as Charles Fearns, the
Swetnams, and Harold Etches did not. He was, then, in the shyness of
his handkerchief, on the side of the angels.
He passed up the double staircase (decorated with white or pale frocks
of unparalleled richness), and so into the grand hall. A scarlet orchestra
was on the platform, and many people strolled about the floor in

attitudes of expectation. The walls were festooned with flowers. The
thrill of being magnificent seized him, and he was drenched in a vast
desire to be truly magnificent himself. He dreamt of magnificence and
boot-brushes kept sticking out of this dream like black mud out of snow.
In his reverie he looked about for Ruth Earp, but she was invisible.
Then he went downstairs again, idly; gorgeously feigning that he spent
six evenings a week in ascending and descending monumental
staircases, appropriately clad. He was determined to be as sublime as
any one.
There was a stir in the corridor, and the sublimest consented to be
excited.
The Countess was announced to be imminent. Everybody was grouped
round the main portal, careless of temperatures. Six times was the
Countess announced to be imminent before she actually appeared,
expanding from the narrow gloom of her black carriage like a magic
vision. Aldermen received her--and they did not do it with any excess
of gracefulness. They seemed afraid of her, as though she was
recovering from influenza and they feared to catch it. She had precisely
the same high voice, and precisely the same efficient smile, as she had
employed to Denry, and these instruments worked marvels on aldermen;
they were as melting as salt on snow. The Countess disappeared
upstairs in a cloud of shrill apologies and trailing aldermen. She
seemed to have greeted everybody except Denry. Somehow he was
relieved that she had not drawn attention to him. He lingered, hesitating,
and then he saw a being in a long yellow overcoat, with a bit of
peacock's feather at the summit of a shiny high hat. This being held a
lady's fur mantle. Their eyes met. Denry had to decide instantly. He
decided.
"Hello, Jock!" he said.
"Hello, Denry!" said the other, pleased.
"What's been happening?" Denry inquired, friendly.
Then Jock told him