THREE
THE THINGS which Irene Redfield remembered afterward about the Negro Welfare League dance seemed, to her, unimportant and unrelated.
She remembered the not quite derisive smile with which Brian had cloaked his vexation when she informed him—oh, so apologetically—that she had promised to take Clare, and related the conversation of her visit.
She remembered her own little choked exclamation of admiration, when, on coming downstairs a few minutes later than she had intended, she had rushed into the living-room where Brian was waiting and had found Clare there too. Irene, with her new rosecoloured chiffon frock ending at the knees, and her cropped curls, felt dowdy and commonplace. She regretted that she hadn’t counselled Clare to wear something ordinary and inconspicuous. What on earth would Brian think of deliberate courting of attention? But if Clare Kendry’s appearance had in it anything that was, to Brian Redfield, annoying or displeasing, the fact was not discernible to his wife as, with an uneasy feeling of guilt, she stood there looking into his face while Clare explained that she and he had made their own introductions, accompanying her words with a little deferential smile for Brian, and receiving in return one of his amused, slightly mocking smiles.
She remembered Clare’s saying, as they sped northward: “You know, I feel exactly as I used to on the Sunday we went to the Christmas-tree celebration. I knew there was to be a surprise for me and couldn’t quite guess what it was to be. I am so excited. You can’t possibly imagine! It’s marvellous to be really on the way! I can hardly believe it!”
At her words and tone a chilly wave of scorn had crept through Irene. All those superlatives! She said, taking care to speak indifferently: “Well, maybe in some ways you will be surprised, more, probably, than you anticipate.”
Brian, at the wheel, had thrown back: “And then again, she won’t be so very surprised after all, for it’ll no doubt be about what she expects. Like the Christmas-tree.”
She remembered rushing around here and there, consulting with this person and that one, and now and then snatching a part of a dance with some man whose dancing she particularly liked.
She remembered catching glimpses of Clare in the whirling crowd, dancing, sometimes with a white man, more often with a Negro, frequently with Brian. Irene was glad that he was being nice to Clare, and glad that Clare was having the opportunity to discover that some coloured men were superior to some white men.
She remembered a conversation she had with Hugh Wentworth in a free half-hour when she had dropped into a chair in an emptied box and let her gaze wander over the bright crowd below.
An old nursery rhyme popped into her head. She turned to Wentworth, who had just taken a seat beside her, and recited it:
“Rich man, poor man,
Beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer,
Indian chief.”
“Yes,” Wentworth said, “that’s it. Everybody seems to be here and a few more. But what I’m trying