“Quite agree with you,” responded the bored one, in a tone of deep approval.
“Could not get a dance, though,” said another; “card crammed.”
“But,” pleaded his partner, a young person with a figure and dress resembling a pink-and-white pin-cushion, “although she is quite too lovely, she has a melancholy expression when her face is in repose. I admire a more riant style. I think Miss Gordon is more taking, though not so strictly pretty.”
“I think so too,” said another lady; “Miss Gordon is my beauty.”
“You are welcome to her, ladies,” responded the red-faced squire; “none of the gentlemen will dispute her with you—we are all sworn admirers of Lady Fairfax. She’s like a princess—a fairy princess. Let’s drink her health,” seizing a magnum of champagne and suiting the action to the word, having already supped “not wisely, but too well.”
Reginald, much disgusted, was tied to this particular table by his partner’s wants—the demands of a locust-like appetite.
“Never so tiresome or so hungry a girl,” he thought, as he replenished her plate time after time.
“What fun it is to hear them discussing your wife,” she whispered; “you should get up and return thanks. How taken aback they would look.”
“I don’t think I will disturb their equanimity so cruelly,” he returned. “But if you have quite finished, we will adjourn. The next dance has commenced, and your partner is sure to be anathematising me.”
As he rose and left the table, someone said: