Suddenly Thayer roused himself.
"Lorimer has been detained, Miss Dane, and we both are growing hungry. May I take you to the dining-room?"
Side by side, they crossed the floor, now almost deserted, and reached the door of the dining-room whence came a confused noise of buzzing tongues and clattering dishes. Then, above all else, Lorimer's voice met their ears, a merry, laughing voice, but strangely thick as regarded its consonants.
"An' so, 's I was shayin', we wen' to Mory's, one ni', an' there was thish man—"
Some unaccountable impulse made him raise his eyes just then. They fell full upon Beatrix standing in the doorway, with Thayer at her side.
CHAPTER NINE
Beatrix's library was full of women, when Lorimer put in a tardy appearance, the day after the Fresh Air Fund concert. A dozen little tables littered with cards were pushed together in one corner, and the tinkling of china and the hum of conversation betrayed the fact that whist had given place to a more congenial method of passing the time. Modern womanhood plays whist almost without ceasing; but it should be noted that she frowns over the whist and reserves her smiles for her more garrulous interludes.
Lorimer, as he stepped across the threshold, felt a sudden longing to retreat. He had forgotten both the whist and the interlude, that afternoon, and he felt no inclination to exchange verbal inanities with a group of women of whom several had been at the Lloyd Avalons supper, the night before. All of them, he was convinced, had heard of the incident, and were covertly eying Beatrix to see whether she looked as if she had slept well. His theory was justified by the fact that, for the first time that season, not a substitute had been present.