Reprise by Joan Smith Page A

being friendly then. That is best.”
    “Friendly?” Elmtree leapt in. “He couldn’t get next or nigh her for the rush of black jackets.”
    Prudence didn’t think it best at all, nor did she think that was the way affairs stood between them. She fully expected to see him at the door that same day, and so, of course, did Clarence. Miss Mallow said not a word of this, but her uncle pulled out his turnip watch a dozen times between ten and eleven, wondering aloud each time what was keeping him. When he still was not battering down the door at eleven-thirty, Clarence could control his eagerness no longer, and had his high perch phaeton called out to go scouting down Bond Street to look for him. Dammler did not come that day, nor the next, nor any day that week. The cards for the party arrived, to be stuck in a corner of the saloon mirror for pointing out to callers.
    As day succeeded day, Prudence reviewed the meeting for the hidden cause of his neglect. He had called her Prue, had said our house, had called Clarence Uncle, and his smile had been warm, but on the other hand he had danced with Lady Malvern and had not danced with herself. It began to look as though he were playing some nefarious game of cat and mouse. Why did he not come? Was it to be no more than friendship between them, after all? Was this the polite way of smoothing over a broken engagement when two persons were likely to go on meeting? He was redoing the house--would it not be appropriate for him to consult with her if there was a possibility she was to share it with him? Dammler’s taste, to judge by his apartment, was a little garish. She had no wish to spend the rest of her life in a saloon that boasted no sofas, but required the inhabitants to be seated on backless ottomans, with the only tables so far below hand level that setting a teacup down was an inconvenience.
    She tried to find face-saving excuses for his absence. Impossible not to remember he had a play in preparation--with Cybele in the cast. He would be spending a good deal of time at the theater. Was it Cybele that kept him so busy he couldn’t find half an hour to call? As to his host of other friends, she could not but wonder if Lady Malvern were not seeing him.
    Dammler was spending his time more innocently than she could have imagined. Between the play, the proofs of the sonnets to be read and corrected, the house to be got ready and new servants to be interviewed, he had hardly a minute free. What minutes he had were passed in restraining himself from running to Grosvenor Square, where he was by no means sure of his reception. Prudence had been friendlier than he dared hope. The rancor was spent, but there had been no eagerness in her welcome. She had made excuses not to join him in his box, had been particular to show him she went to the party to please Clarence, and had not offered him a copy of whatever it was she had given Murray. What could it be? She was open to further advances, but they would be careful and seemly. No eager puppy trotting back with his tail wagging this time. Meanwhile he prepared the house with a lavish hand, in a way he hoped she would like. The coup de grace was to be the book of sonnets. When they were bound, he would take her a copy and let his poems do the job of courting for him.
    He was happy with them. Sitting out in the meadow with the warm summer sun beating on his shoulders, he had gone over all the days of their meeting and friendship that had ripened into love. The poems were an unabashed tribute to her, and they were good. The best thing he had done. He knew it before Murray told him. They would tell her in a civilized way what he felt, but couldn’t put into words. When he spoke, his tongue ran away with him. It was his besetting fault, that tongue. In the written work he had pared away the excesses and left the essence. She would recognize in them allusions to herself that would pass for generalizations to others, but she would know they