“I do not find the average partner that falls to one’s lot in such receptions all that fancy paints.” And then finding she had repeated a phrase of Mr. Ensign’s, blushed, though no one stood near her but Cicely.
“Fancy’s brush would need to be dipped in but two colors to present to our eye the mass of them,” was Cicely’s laughing reply. “A streak of black for the coat, and a daub of white for the shirt front. Voila tout.”
“With perhaps a dash of red in some cases,” murmured a voice over their shoulders.
They turned with hurried blushes. “Ah, Mr. Ensign,” quoth Cicely in unabashed gaiety, “we reserve red for the exceptions. We did not intend to include our acknowledged friends in our somewhat sweeping assertion.”
“Ah, I see, the black streak and the white daub are a symbol of, ‘Er—Miss Stuyvesant—very warm this evening! Have an ice, do. I always have an ice after dancing; so refreshing, you know.’”
The manner in which he imitated the usual languid drawl of certain of the young scapegraces heretofore mentioned, was irresistible. Paula forgot her confusion in her mirth.
“You are blessed with a capacity for playing both rôles, I perceive,” cried Cicely with unusual abandon. “Well, it is convenient, there is nothing like scope.”
“Unless it is hope,” whispered Mr. Ensign so low that only Paula could hear.
“But I warn you,” continued Cicely, with a sweet soft laugh that seemed to carry her heart far out into the passing throng, “that we have no fondness for the model beau of the period. A dish of milk makes a very good supper but it looks decidedly pale on the dinner table.”
“Yes,” said Paula, eying the various young men that filed up and down before them, some pale, some dark, some handsome, some plain, but all smiling and dapper, if not debonair, “some men could be endured if only they were not men.”