“Oh, how dy’ do, Mr. Norris,” just as though they had never sailed together in dual solitude, and she allowed her lip to curl in evidence of her disapproval of the much warmer greeting of her elders.
She sat down and eyed and tapped a small bronze slipper, while she ignored the reproachful glances of her mother at her rank desertion of conversational duties. Her father hardly noticed it. He himself so liked young men that he frequently forgot that his daughter and not himself might be the object of their quest. So he plunged cheerfully into an animated discussion of the new tide in civic politics, while Norris dully and conscientiously tried to bear up his end.
Ellery’s eyes, however, as well as the thoughts behind those superficial thoughts that guided his words, were absorbed in the other side of the room, where Miss Elton canvassed with her mother the merits of various embroidery silks. She was lovelier than ever. He had thought her perfect before, but to-night she had added a sheen to perfection and made herself entrancing, both reposeful and vivid. He wondered if she had heard of Dick’s engagement and if her color covered a pale heart.
Suddenly she flung up her head impatiently, and came behind her father’s chair to clap a small hand over his mouth in the middle of a sentence of which Norris had entirely lost track.
“Father, father,” she cried, “do you think Mr. Norris wants to come here and maunder over stupid politics all the evening, after he has been writing stupid editorials about them all day? They are stupid—I’ve read some of them.” She smiled at the young man. “Wouldn’t you both infinitely rather hear me sing?”
Mr. Elton kissed the offending hand before he put it gently down.
“I know I should.”
Norris sprang up.
“May I turn your music?” he asked eagerly, but she shook her head as she moved away.
“There isn’t going to be any music to turn.”