The arrival of the first guests ended further discussion, and shortly the reception hall, drawing room and ballroom were thronged with the merry assemblage.
Promptly at 9:30, the first strains of music floated out from a balcony screened with ferns and roses. The dance was on.
To say that Elinor was having a glorious time would be putting it mildly. She fairly reveled in it all. She felt that she had attained the heights as the center of attraction, with a bevy of young men surrounding her, politely fighting for the privilege of a dance.
She exulted in the thought that this was only the beginning of wonderful days and nights that lay before her. Surely she possessed everything to make her happy—Youth, beauty and riches. Life was so wonderful seen through the rosiest of glasses.
Eleven o’clock! Still no Howard. Elinor took a few moments to cast some resentful thoughts Howard-ward, but the fun was too fast and absorbing for her to worry more than that few moments over her brother’s dereliction.
In spite of her husband’s admonishing, Marjorie was acquiring a worry that momentarily gave evidence of becoming panic-stricken as she watched the doors with eager eyes for the boy who did not come. She felt she could not stand it any longer. She must know—must do something. With a hesitancy that would have been most strange in the Atwood days, she approached Hugh where he stood talking and laughing in a care-free manner with a group of his guests. He excused himself to speak to her as she laid her hand on his arm to ask for a word.
“Hugh, dear,” she begged, “don’t you think we had better call up Professor Anderson and find out about Howard—when he left, and——”
“And get him in bad, I suppose,” Hugh blustered, but there was worry in his own handsome face as he once more glanced at his watch and then at the entrances. “No—he’s probably loitering, and——”
Griggs, his valet, touched him on the arm. He turned to hear the few hurried whispered words.
“Important ’phone call, my dear,” he explained. “Make my excuses. Back in a minute——”