be like ripping the plaster off a wound to see if it was really as deep as one feared. He knew it would be.
And he would go and listen to Margaret Ballinger play her violin. Damn Mrs. Ballinger for insulting her so!
The conversation was going on around him, something to do with a house they had all seen recently, or a public building of some nature.
"I am afraid I do not care for it," Delphine Lambert said with feeling. "Most unimaginative. I am disappointed they chose such old-fashioned ideas. There was nothing new in it at all."
"Restricted budget, I daresay," her husband offered.
She gave him an odd look. "Mr. Melville could have designed something far better, I am sure. Don't you think so, my dear?" She looked at Zillah.
"He is quite brilliant," Zillah agreed, unable to hide her enthusiasm. "He is so sensitive. He is able to create beauty where one would never have imagined it possible and to draw designs so it can be built. You cannot imagine how exciting it is to see drawings on a page and then to see them come to rife. Oh!" She blushed. "I mean-to reality, of course. But such grace and inventiveness almost seem as if they have a life, an existence of their own." She looked from one to another of them. "Do you know what I mean?"
"Of course we do, my dear," Lambert assured her. "Only natural for you to be proud of him."
Delphine smiled at Rathbone. "Perhaps you did not know, Sir Oliver, but Zillah is engaged to marry Mr. Melville. It is quite charming to see two young people so devoted to one another; they cannot but be happy. He really is a most talented man, and yet not in the least immodest or overbearing. His success has never gone to his head, nor has he lost his sense of gratitude to Mr. Lambert for his patronage. You believed in him from the very beginning, didn't you, my dear?" It was a rhetorical question. She did not wait for an answer but turned again to Mrs. Ballinger. "Mr. Lambert was always good at seeing a man's character. Makes a judgment from the first meeting, and never wrong that I know of."
"How fortunate," Mrs. Ballinger said dryly, "we have not the opportunity of having to exercise such a gift. So much in society is already known of a person." She did not add the implicated aside that the Lamberts were not part of society, but it hung in the air unsaid.
Mrs. Lambert merely smiled. She could afford to. Society or not, she had successfully accomplished her principal role in life. She was not only married to a wealthy man herself, she had engaged her only daughter to a man of good looks, good manners, brilliant talent, and excellent financial prospects. What more was there to do?
The orchestra had begun to play a waltz. Rathbone turned to Margaret Ballinger.
"Miss Ballinger, will you do me the honor of dancing with me?"
She accepted with a smile and he excused himself and offered her his arm to lead her to the floor. She took it lightly- he could barely feel her hand-and followed him without meeting his eyes.
They had been dancing for several minutes before she spoke, and then it was hesitant.
"I am sorry Mama is so... forward. I hope she did not embarrass you, Sir Oliver."
"Not at all," he said honestly. It was she who had been embarrassed. He had been merely angry. "She is only behaving as all mothers do." He wanted to think of something else to add which would make her feel easier, but he could imagine nothing. This would go on, and they both knew it. It was a ritual. Some young women found a certain excitement in it or had a self-confidence which bore them along. Some were not sufficiently sensitive or imaginative to suffer the humiliation or to perceive the young man's awkwardness or knowledge of being manipulated, almost hunted, and the burden of expectation upon him.
He must find a conversation to hold with Margaret. She was dancing with her head turned away, self-conscious, almost as if she feared he had invited her only to save her embarrassment It was half true. He wished to make it wholly a lie. She seemed so very vulnerable.
"Do you know this architect, Killian Melville?" he asked.
"I have met him three or four times," she answered, a slight lift of surprise in her voice, and she looked up towards him.